The guard, a wide-nosed fellow with deep weather creases across his brow, poured out the remaining contents of his cup, splattering damp globs of sand on my legs. After hooking his cup to his belt, he took my tether from the slavehandler and raked an insolent gaze over me from head to sandy toes. “Big fellow.” He coiled the tether chain around his hand until my face was only a handsbreadth from his own, his soulless gray eyes unblinking. His meaty finger traced a line across my shoulder. When his finger encountered my collar, I flinched. He grinned-a grotesque, unnerving expression on a damnable Zhid. But he just tapped on the metal surface without triggering the enchantment. “We’ll see how long he can stay alive.”

“I’ve got to fetch Gorag,” said the handler. “Keeper says we’re to see to his feet.” As my escort hurried into the night, the guard released the tether to its full length and dragged me through the door.

We stood in a small open space, sheltered by the brick wall behind and to the right of us and a brick enclosure to the left. The Zhid jerked his head to two doorways on the left. “Supply room and surgeon’s room. Over here”-he indicated the corner to our right where a rectangular stone sink stood half filled with nasty-looking water-“is where you will wash yourself before a match. Our commanders don’t like fighting with slaves who are filthy.”

Directly in front of us was a wall of the familiar narrowly spaced black bars. Taking the lantern that hung over the sink and unlocking a gate in the center of the wall, the guard led me down an aisle between the cells, some twleve of them in all. The lamp wasn’t bright enough for me to see more than indistinct shapes sitting or lying on the floor in each one. No one moved as we passed.

Halfway down the aisle was an open door, leading into a cell with a thick layer of straw over the dirt floor. The guard unhooked the tether chain and shoved me inside. “Water and graybread will be brought. Down there at the far end of the stable is a pile of clean straw. You’ll be permitted to change the straw once in a month, so you’ll want to have a care with your habits. Remember, slaves don’t speak without permission.” He grinned again as he slammed the door and locked it. “I like removing tongues.”

I sank onto the straw, grateful to get off my wretched feet. The cooling night breeze blew through the bars. As the guard’s footsteps receded, a dreadful quiet enveloped me. Whatever scraps of resilience I had left withered in the silence.

My cell was a cube a few paces on a side. The graybread basket and the waterskin were hung on the bars beside the door and center aisle, where they could be filled from outside the cage. Nothing but the vague dark outlines of buildings was visible past the outer bars, and though the cells on either side of me were occupied, I could neither see nor hear the occupants, only feel their human presence.

An hour later, as I huddled in the corner trying to persuade myself to sleep, the stable gate opened with a clang and the lamp moved down the aisle. The guard stopped outside my cell. “Up with you.”

Holding onto the bars, I dragged myself to my feet, unable even to speculate on what was coming. He led me to one of the rooms in the brick enclosure, shoved me onto a long wooden bench along one wall, and attached both my tether chain and my hands to an iron ring set into the wall above my head. Then he left me alone in the sputtering yellow light of an oil lamp.

The small room had wooden benches around every wall and more iron rings set into the walls and the floors. The room also sported a long table, a backless stool, and a small wheeled table holding a basin and pitcher. Surgeon’s room, the guard had told me.

Before very long, a Zhid hurried in, carrying a large leather case. He was a small, tidy man with a short beard trimmed close around his full lips. Tossing his case on the table, he yelled at someone outside the door to bring him cavet.

He dragged the stool over beside the bench and sat down. “Let me see your feet,” he said, slapping the stained wooden bench. “Here.”

I propped my throbbing feet on the bench, and the Zhid took one in hand and examined it, poking here and there with his thumbs, dusting off the caked sand. His face wrinkled in disgust, he dropped my foot and retrieved his case. After fetching one of the basins and filling it with water from the pitcher, he set to work-none too gently-cutting the dead skin away, and draining and cleaning the nastiest festerings. A boy brought the surgeon a tin cup filled with steaming dark liquid that smelled strongly of anise. He gulped the drink and went back to work, mumbling about the waste of his time and talent on slaves. Several times he made odd gestures with his fingers and I felt a painful burning and stretching deep in my foot. Some devilish enchantment, I guessed, but I could not detect such things any more. I tried to concentrate on anything else, but there wasn’t much to distract me.

As the surgeon covered the open wounds with ointments and bandages, and I was breathing a little easier, another slave was brought in and attached to the wall across the room. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh and had a vicious swelling over one eye. I tried to engage the man’s attention, but he kept his eyes averted.

“This one has to fight again tomorrow, so patch him well,” said the guard. “Are you done with this lot?”

The surgeon tied off my last bandage, cut off the end with his knife, and stood up. “Keep him idle for a day. And send the mule-brained Drudge with more cavet.” As I was detached from the ring and led hobbling away, he was pulling out materials to stitch the other man’s thigh. I didn’t envy the poor bastard.

A Zhid Healer. The very concept made my head hurt.

The next day was long and unsettling. Left idle by the surgeon’s order, I listened and learned. The other slaves were taken out one by one through the morning, assigned to high-ranking warriors who had summoned sparring partners. Evidently some of them had regular assignments, while others were moved from one Zhid to another depending on special needs and requests. One man was assigned to wrestling, one to a match with knives and axes, one to speed work with a commander who had been demoted for his lack of agility.

Over and over, I heard the rules laid down. The slave would wear only such armor and use only such weapons- real or blunted practice weapons-as the Zhid warrior specified. The slave was required to fight to the best of his abilities and to participate in such exercises and drills as the warrior or his instructor devised. The slave was not permitted to yield the match or stop the exercise. Only Zhid could call a halt.

As the slaves were taken out of the pen, led by tethers attached to their collars, none of them looked to one side or the other. Was it forbidden, or was it just too painful to see others witnessing one’s degradation? Perhaps it was only fear of what was to come, for one day’s watching taught me how fleeting was a career as a sparring partner for the Zhid.

A man was found dead in his cell that morning. Two more wounded men were brought back by midday, told they would be looked at when the surgeon had time. One of them was in the cell next to me, and in his shallow struggling breaths I heard an ominous gurgling. I banged on the bars of my cell. When the guard came, I slapped the back of my hand on my lips.

“Speak.”

“The man next to me is dangerously wounded. I can hear it in his breathing. His chest-”

“Is that all? Call me again for such a reason, and I’ll have you flogged.” He spat at the dying man and walked away.

I had to do something. My hand fit between the bars, but only as far as the wrist bands. The steel loops that were used for restraints wouldn’t fit through, and my neighbor lay too far away for my fingers to reach. With no talent for healing and no power for mind-speaking or anything else, words were all I could offer him. Many times in the days I’d fought on the walls of Avonar, I had heard Dar’Nethi Healers pray their invocation and found comfort in the familiar words. Perhaps they might do the same for the dying man and remind him of who he was. So I whispered the verse through the bars of the cell, hoping the guard would not pass by and hear.

“Life, hold. Stay your hand ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill his soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place. Je’den encour, my brother. Heal swiftly.”

A rasping whisper responded. “L’Tiere calls. I go freely.”

“May Vasrin’s light show you the Way beyond the Verges.”

“I had almost forgotten…”

“I, too,” I said, but only to myself, for the struggling breaths had ceased with his last word. It was several hours until the guard noticed the man was dead and dragged him down the aisle. I could not see his face.

The other man survived until the surgeon came. Evidently his leg was maimed beyond easy repair. He was taken away in a cart.

The afternoon stretched long and hot and quiet. My gray-bread basket and waterskin were kept filled by a boy who wore no collar. I supposed he had no power that required such bondage. No way to tell. Snippets of conversation from the guards and those who passed by outside the pen drifted on the air: Someone named Gensei Senat had been posted to Zhev’Na; the previous slavemaster, who had only taken office a month before, had died suddenly; another Dar’Nethi village had been taken. The Lords were pleased with the outcome of the raid.

The Lords… Zhev’Na… No Dar’Nethi child grew up without nightmares of Zhev’Na, and yet I could not say I had ever really believed in the Lords or their fortress. I was beginning to believe.

What I did come to believe in was the Zhid surgeon. He knew his business. By the next morning, though still tender to the touch, my feet were no longer hot with festering. He dressed them again, wrapped them tightly, and cleared me to fight.

One of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me while the air was still cool. After reminding me of the rules, he led me through the camp to a walled yard of hard-baked dirt. In one corner was a water barrel. Piled beside it were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Standing in the center of the arena were a brawny Zhid warrior, clad in a hauberk and steel cap, and another slave, who was strapping steel kneecaps over the warrior’s greaves. “The warrior has requested sparring with great-swords,” said the handler, detaching my tether and nodding toward the pile of arms. “You will follow his instructions.”