Chains of Nobility by Brad Graft

Author:Brad Graft [Graft, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07CN6TWQ6
Publisher: The Sager Group LLC
Published: 2018-04-23T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER

25

Duyal

The citadel hippodrome, Hisn Kayfa

September 19, 1236

Another tulb approaches from the opposite direction, a rectangle of tight white and harmonized boot heels hugging the right side of the wide corridor. While the instructors seem to go to great lengths to keep the training units sequestered, such encounters are inevitable, maybe even planned by the Mu’allim.

Duyal is intrigued by the other units, curious what many moons behind these walls makes one into. He has seen this unit before, figuring the other tulb is a couple of years or so into training. Only thirty-eight of them march, their numbers likely halved from when they first arrived at the citadel. Like antelope that suffered through a long winter on the steppe, only the fittest and mentally strong now comprise their ranks.

In step with his fellow novices, Duyal centers himself on the boy to his front. He shifts his eyes right, ensuring that he is also properly aligned on the recruit beside him. He times the move to buy himself a few seconds of inattention, a moment of reprieve from Cenk’s critical eye. As the two units close, Duyal keeps his head straight so as not to be noticed, but shifts his gaze left, as far as his eyes will allow.

A tall novice carries their guidon smartly, the stitched number five fluttering upon their yellow cloth. Bronzed, hardened forms march smartly by, not one moving an eye or head to see who passes. Any roundness in their faces has been chiseled away by constant training; any gentleness in their demeanor long wiped clean by their instructors’ sternness.

Their Mu’allim nods to Cenk, paying little attention to those in his charge, as cover, alignment, and general discipline are now old lessons mastered by his novices. As they pass, a draft of seasoned wool trails them. The confident stomp from broken-in leather passes by in threes.

Duyal wishes that he was among them, that he acted like them, smelled like them, unsure if those in his own tulb will ever rise to be like these. If all novices had arrived as crude oak saplings, these recruits were now ready lance shafts, their rough bark and lighter sapwood having been whittled away over the years by their instructors, leaving only honed dark wood in its place. All that remained was for their blunt ends to be fitted with heads of Mamluk steel, during the last few moons of training.

Swop! “Keep your filthy head forward,” Cenk says.

As Tulb Five passes, Duyal envies their clean, form-fitting garb, not only tidy-looking but obviously designed for swift movement. So unlike the stained, baggy outfits his tulb wears, the same ones tossed to them on their arrival, the trousers especially burdensome, always slipping down, the drawstring always needing retying. These awkward moments during training always gave Cenk and the other instructors a chance to whack or kick a novice.

He figures the uniform issue is just another part of the greater Mamluk design—anything received here will bear a dear cost. Only after a year and

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