Soldier Song (The Teralin Sword Book 6) Read online

  Endric continue to follow, feeling as if he had missed something, and as they went, he stared up at the fortress high above him. He couldn’t detect anything from it, and he half expected to detect teralin, especially considering the staff Novan carried. Novan couldn’t be unique in his desire to carry a teralin staff. Maybe that was a secret that the historian guild was trying to keep, but he didn’t sense any. The only teralin he detected was from his sword.

  Every so often, he would reach beneath his cloak and grip the hilt. Doing so sent a reverberation of the positively charged teralin through him, and it helped to clear his mind. He needed that clarity of thought and worried that without it, the poisoning would continue to cloud his mind, making it ever more difficult to keep his focus.

  Then again, without the poisoning, would he have come across the historian?

  He didn’t know.

  It seemed a fortuitous happenstance that he managed to encounter the historian. He had needed to find the guild, though he had hoped to wait until Novan reached Coamdon to do so, to be better prepared for whatever it was that he might experience and be prepared for the guild.

  Endric studied Poaln. Could it be that he was responsible for his poisoning?

  He didn’t think that was likely and thought that it unlikely that he had even encountered Poaln before meeting him on the street, long after he had been poisoned and begun retching. That made it unlikely that he was the responsible one, but had he seen him before?

  Endric thought back to what he had seen in the tavern. Could Poaln have been there?

  He tried to remember everyone in the tavern and let his Denraen training take over, allowing him to visualize what he had seen. There were tables upon tables within the tavern, and most of them were occupied by people that he would have expected to be merchants, the cut of their cloth and the style of dress indicating that they had wealth, enough that they would be able to afford to eat in a tavern at the merchant level.

  Endric’s own clothing would have been dirtied, soiled from his time on the sea, and maybe that had drawn attention. It was possible that he hadn’t been nearly as careful as he should have been. He thought through everyone he had seen in the tavern, and there wasn’t anyone like Poaln.

  Endric stared at him for a moment. The staff. That was what he had to look for. It wasn’t necessarily Poaln’s features. They were pretty common, and he had dark brown hair and unremarkable cheeks, and even his eyes were a plain brown, nothing that would draw attention.

  A man like that could hide in plain sight.

  The ability to hide like that was beneficial for a historian. He could sit back, observe, and the only thing that would draw any attention would be the staff.

  And then there was the fact that he wore the mark of the guild. Novan never wore his, and it seemed an unusual thing for a man to wear openly, which left Endric thinking that perhaps there was a reason for it, but what would that reason be? Could he have seen the ring? That would be an indicator of his presumed position, and if he managed to see it, it was possible that he would know that Endric was supposed to be an apprentice. That would mean that his reaction in the street had been fabricated.

  Had he seen the staff before?

  It wouldn’t be that remarkable most of the time, but when it came to Coamdon, it might be unusual. There might not be all that many people in Coamdon who carried staffs the same way that Novan did.

  Endric thought about what he had seen and realized that there had been someone in the corner of the tavern, someone hiding along the door leading into the tavern, who he had paid little mind to. The staff was there, and he remembered seeing it, though any memory of the man who the staff belonged to was hazy. Then again, maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.

  If Poaln had been responsible for poisoning him, how? The food had come out of the kitchen, and the waitress had brought it directly to him, but maybe there was a way that it had been sidetracked.

  Endric rubbed his hand across his face, trying to work the poison out of his mind, trying to clear his head, but he struggled. Everything was still a cloudy mess within his head, and despite his best intention, he couldn’t get his mind clear, not the way that he needed to.

  Poaln paused and looked at him. “Are you coming, Benran?”

  “You were there,” Endric said.

  Poaln smiled at him. “I was where? In the street? I know that you were poisoned, Benran, but it should have worn off by now.”

  Endric blinked. He knew the duration of the poisoning.

  “How do you know that it should have worn off by now?”

  Poaln turned to face him. He tapped his staff on the cobbled street, staring at Endric for a moment. “Very good. Where was I?”

  “You were sitting near the front corner of the tavern. Your staff was leaning against the wall, and you were sitting with your back in the corner, arranged so that you would be able to see the entirety of the tavern.”

  Poaln smiled. “Excellent. And what was I eating?”

  Gods, but could Endric come up with what he had been eating? He couldn’t remember it that clearly and didn’t know if there was anything there that would trigger a memory for him.

  “I don’t know,” Endric said.

  “No? You could see that I was there, but you can’t recall what I was eating?”

  Endric took a deep breath. Was he able to come up with what Poaln had been eating? It had to be there within his mind, and all he had to do was come up with the answer, but what was it?

  He imagined the table, thinking back to the tavern, and focused on his Denraen training, trying to recall everything that he’d seen. It was one of the lessons that he had learned when first starting his Denraen training. He was to observe everything. It made it easier to report.

  This time, his need to report everything that he saw was even greater. Somehow, he had to come up with what exactly it was that he had seen.

  It would’ve been unremarkable, which meant that it hadn’t stuck in his mind, and yet somehow he needed to draw it out. It was there. Everything was there.

  Slowly, the table Poaln had been sitting at came into focus. He could see the man and saw his face much more clearly. There was the intensity on his face when Endric had entered and done his brief scan of the tavern. It had been little more than a quick survey, a way to be alerted to any dangers, and when his gaze had drifted past Poaln, he hadn’t viewed him as a danger, but then again, he wouldn’t. The historians weren’t any danger, at least not typically. Novan might be an exception.

  But with Poaln there, there had to be something that he had seen.

  Endric focused on the table. That was what Poaln wanted him to report on, and it had to be there. There had to be something.

  But there wasn’t. The table was empty. He had a single glass, but it too was empty.

  “Nothing. You weren’t eating.”

  Poaln stared at him. “Are you sure?”

  Endric focused on what he remembered and nodded. “I’m sure. You didn’t have any food.”

  “Very good. Now, what else can you recall?”

  “You had an empty mug, but I don’t know what was once in it.”

  “Not ale, if that’s what your question includes,” Poaln said.

  “I don’t know what I was questioning,” Endric said.

  “Ale can cloud minds, and I’m sure your master has told you to avoid it.”

  Endric nodded. Novan might not have told him to avoid it, but his father certainly had. Ale could cloud minds, and Endric had seen that often enough with those who worked and served with him. It was the reason that he had essentially stopped drinking it.

  “What else do you want me to tell you?”

  “You’ve done quite well,” Poaln said. “I honestly didn’t expect you to realize that I was there, at least not so soon. How is it that you made the connection?”

  Did he tell him the truth?

  “Your staff,” Endric said.

  “The staff? Interesting
. I would not have expected the staff to be what alerted you to my presence. Why the staff?”

  “I think it was because no others in the tavern had any weapons,” Endric said.

  “Other than you,” Poaln said.

  Endric glanced down at his sword. “Other than me.”

  “Why is it that you carry a sword?”

  “Novan prefers that we have some ability to protect ourselves. We don’t always travel to the safest places.”

  “I’m not surprised by that. Novan strikes me as one who thinks to observe in places that he should not.”

  “He does,” Endric said. He had a sense that he didn’t need to reveal where they traveled. That wasn’t his to share. Novan was his master, not Poaln, and with Novan serving as his master, he would be expected to protect the secrets of their journeys and be expected to not reveal where they traveled and what the experience.

  “How skilled are you with the sword?” Poaln asked.

  “Skilled enough,” Endric said, smiling slightly. “Why did you poison me?”

  “You came to Coamdon,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You came to the headquarters of the guild. There’s only one reason for an apprentice historian to come to the headquarters.”

  “What if Novan brought me here for a different reason?”

  “He would not have brought you,” Poaln said. He said it so decisively that Endric couldn’t help but think that there had to be some reason, but if there wasn’t, then Novan hadn’t been entirely honest with him and hadn’t prepped him for what he would face, but then again, they had been separated, which prevented Novan from having the opportunity to share with him everything that he could. Maybe Novan had intended to tell him, or, more likely, Novan would have surprised him with that information the moment they reached the city.

  But if Novan intended to share with him the reason for coming here, and everything that he might encounter, why would he have believed that Endric had any chance of passing the guild testing? There should be no way for Endric to successfully make it through guild testing. He didn’t know anything about the guild, and while he had spent some time with Novan, he certainly hadn’t spent enough time to effectively pass a test that would place him into the guild if he were to succeed.

  It was possible that none of this was about him succeeding. Maybe all of this was about him simply having the opportunity to observe.

  And wasn’t that it? He was sent here to infiltrate the guild, if only to observe, and there would be no way to observe otherwise.

  “You still haven’t told me why you poisoned me.”

  “That is the first step in your testing,” he said.

  “The poisoning is the first step?”

  “In yours, but not in all. When I saw the ring, I didn’t expect you to truly be one of the apprentices. I would never have imagined you would be Novan’s apprentice, especially as we have never encountered one of his before, but when you presented yourself here, the first step is a test by a guild member, and it’s up to that guild member to determine the nature of that test.”

  “And you decided that I needed to be poisoned?”

  “I decided that I would determine the nature of your test.”

  “Did I pass?”

  Poaln stared at him for a moment. “Do you think that you passed?”

  Endric shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. You poisoned me, and then you were going to escort me to the guildhall, so I don’t know whether or not that means I passed or whether that means you were going to poison me again.”

  Poaln smiled at him. “Ah, I had no intention of poisoning you again, but I must admit I didn’t expect you to succeed. When you didn’t recognize me at first, I thought that perhaps you were going to fail. The staff was never meant to draw attention, and in most cases, it’s overlooked, no differently than my dress.”

  “I probably would’ve overlooked it, yet Novan carries a staff,” Endric said.

  Poaln watched him for a moment. “Does he?”

  Didn’t Poaln know Novan?

  He shrugged again. “As long as I’ve known him, he has.”

  “And how long have you known Novan?”

  “Many years,” he said. At least that much wasn’t a lie. He didn’t need to lie about his knowledge and experience with Novan. Most of the time, his interactions with Novan were sparse, but it seemed as if he had more interactions with Novan than the rest of the guild did. If nothing else, that put him at an advantage, and it was one that Endric would have to leverage, especially if he was going to succeed in this testing.

  “Many years. Do you know that it’s been many years since Novan has returned to the guildhall?”

  “As long as I’m have known him, he hasn’t,” Endric said. He hoped that was true, and he hoped that didn’t draw any more attention than his other statements, but when it came to the historians, they had a way of observing things, and he suspected that Poaln would have the same type of memory as Novan, one that allowed him to recall everything that he saw, or near enough. It was a trait of Novan’s that Endric had always marveled at.

  “You ask about the next step, and I will share with you this much. Once we reach the guildhall, the testing will continue.”

  “Why did you test me before I even agreed to it?”

  “You came to Coamdon. In doing so, you agreed to any testing of the guild, especially when you wear the mark of the apprentice.”

  15

  By the time they reached the fortress, Endric felt his strength returning to nearly normal. He no longer felt quite as weak as he had before, and he was able to hurry along the street, keeping better pace with Poaln. The other man didn’t attempt to slow and hurried along the street, racing at such a pace that had Endric still suffered from the effects of the poisoning, he doubted that he would have been able to keep up.

  Poaln had remained silent, and Endric hoped that he would share more about the testing and would reveal more about what Endric would get himself into, but he didn’t.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was that he had passed the first step.

  Would Senda have passed?

  At the top of the path, a massive wall ringed the road that led through the rest of Coamdon and prevented access to the fortress or the rest of the city up above. The wall practically grew out of the mountain itself, and there was an enormous iron gate that hung open. If it were closed, it would be incredibly difficult to pass through.

  “What’s beyond the gate?” Endric asked.

  “Beyond the gate is the rest of Coamdon,” Poaln said.

  “Why does the wall and the gate separate this part of Coamdon from the rest?”

  “Coamdon is an interesting city. If you had spent much time in the south, you would understand.”

  “Most of our time has been in the north,” Endric admitted.

  “I suspected that,” Poaln said. “If Novan had been traveling the south, we would have seen him more frequently.”

  “Isn’t the south more dangerous these days?”

  “You mean with the Deshmahne?” Poaln shrugged. “Every place has its dangers, but the Deshmahne are priests, no more and no less than the Urmahne. As priests, they serve their people.”

  What would the Deshmahne service be like? How would that look to others?

  He couldn’t imagine that the Deshmahne would serve in any sort of way that would be beneficial, but then again, he was biased against the Deshmahne. That was his downfall, but so long as he was aware of his bias, he could accommodate for it.

  “I have heard stories about the Deshmahne but haven’t seen much of them firsthand.”

  “No, they are quite tight-lipped. Even with the guild, they are unwilling to allow us much access to them. We try, and there is quite a bit that we think that we could learn by observing the Deshmahne, but they don’t allow it, and the guildmasters have decided that we should not press and simply attempt to observe from a distance.”

 
; “Why not press?” That didn’t seem like the guild that Endric knew, even if he didn’t know the guild all that well.

  “Pushing runs the danger of having them exclude the guild altogether. We need access. That is the entire purpose of the guild. We document and record, and if we don’t have that access, then we can’t document and record. Much of the history involving the Deshmahne would be lost.”

  “Isn’t it already lost because we don’t have any way of reaching them?”

  Poaln forced a smile. “You make the same argument that many within the guild make. Novan has taught you well.”

  “Novan has shown me many things,” he said.

  “I can only imagine,” Poaln said. They continued through the gate, and as they did, Endric felt a surge of tingling across his skin. It was a strange sensation, and it was one that he had felt before, but always when he was working with teralin. There was no teralin near here, and if there were, he would be aware of it.

  Why would he have detected that?

  Was there something in the guild that had done that?

  He looked over at Poaln, searching for any sign from the other man that he had felt the same thing, but he didn’t see anything. Then again, Endric didn’t expect to. Poaln had poisoned him and had pretended that he had not, so even if he were to have noticed something, Endric wasn’t sure that he would reveal it.

  “How long has the guild been here?”

  “The guild has been here for many years, though not all know that the guildhall is here.”

  “Why not?”

  “The hall holds volumes that have been recorded over many years. Such documentation is incredibly valuable, especially to those who recognize the value in such history.”

  “Has it always been in Coamdon?”

  “The guildhall has moved over the years, but it has always been in a place where it can be defended.” Poaln pointed to the walls surrounding the city, along with the gate. The placement within the city was almost as much of a barrier as anything. Were it not for the presence of the Deshmahne on the southern continent, Endric thought that Coamdon was an ideal place to house records that were intended to be kept safe and secure.