Replying would have required moving my cracked lips, so I let his jibe pass. I could not understand how thirst and hunger affected me so strongly and left him untouched. As if in answer to my thought, he muttered, “Weakling.” He turned and walked back to his post and squatted down again. Feeling childish, I curled into my hole and closed my gritty eyes. I said my evening prayers silently, asking the good god to grant me strength and help me to discern what my father thought this man could teach me. Perhaps this endurance of privation was how he wished to measure me. Or perhaps this old enemy of my father planned to break his bargain with my father and torment me to my death.
Perhaps my father had been wrong to trust him.
Perhaps Iwas a weakling and a traitor to my father to doubt his judgment. “Make me proud, son,” he had said. I prayed again for strength and courage, and sought sleep.
In the dark of night, I came awake. I smelled sausages. No. I smelled smoked meat. Foolishness. Then I heard a very small sound: the gurgle of a water skin. My mind was playing tricks on me. Then I heard it again, and the slosh as it was lowered from Dewara’s mouth. It occurred to me that his loose robes could easily conceal such things as a water skin and a wallet of dried meat. My sticky eyelids clung together as I opened my eyes. There is nothing darker than full night on the Midlands. The stars were distant and uninterested. Dewara was completely invisible to me.
Sergeant Duril had often counseled me that thirst, hunger, and sleeplessness can lead to a man making poor decisions. He said I could add lust to that list when I was a few years closer to full manhood. So now I pondered and then pondered again. Was this a test of my perseverance and endurance? Or had my father been deceived by his old enemy? Should I obey Dewara even if he was leading me to my death? Should I trust my father’s judgment or my own? My father was older and wiser than I. But he was not here and I was. I was too weary and too thirsty to think coherently. Yet I must make the decision. Obey or disobey. Trust or distrust.
I closed my eyes. I prayed to the good god for guidance, but heard only the sweep of wind across the Plains. I slept fitfully. I dreamed that my father said that if I was worthy to be his son, I could endure this. Then the dream changed, and Sergeant Duril was saying that he’d always known I was stupid, that even the youngest child knew better than to venture out on the Plains without water and food. Idiots deserved to die. How many times had he told me that? If a man couldn’t figure out how to take care of himself, then let him get himself killed and get out of the way before he brought down his whole regiment. I wandered out of my dream to sleeplessness. I was in the control of a savage who disliked me. I had no food or water. I doubted that there was water within a day’s walk of here, or that I could walk a full day without water. Grimness settled on me. I decided to sleep on my decision.
In the creep of dawn, I arose from my hollow in the sand. I went to where Dewara slept. He did not sleep. His eyes were open and watching me. It hurt even to try to speak but I croaked out the words. “I know you have water. Please give me some.”
He sat up slowly. “No.” His hand was already on the haft of his swanneck. I had no weapon at all. He grinned at me. “Why don’t you try to take it?”
I stood there, anger, hatred, and fear fighting for control of me. I decided I wanted to live. “I’m not stupid,” I said. I turned away from him and walked toward the taldi.
He called after me, “You say you are ‘not stupid.’ Is that another way to say ‘coward’?”
The words were like a knife in my back. I tried to ignore them. “Keeksha. Stand.” The mare came to me.
“Sometimes a man has to fight for what he needs to live. He has to fight, no matter what the odds.” Dewara stood up, pulling his swanneck from its sheath. The bronze blade was gold in the rising sun. His face darkened with anger. “Get away from my animal. I forbid you to touch her.”
I grasped the mane at the base of her neck and heaved myself onto her.
“Your father said you would obey me. You said you would obey me. I said that if you disobeyed me, I would notch your ear.”
“I am going to find water.” I don’t know why I even said those words.
“You are not a man of your word. Neither is your father. But I am!” he shouted after me as I rode off. “Dedem. Stand!” At that, I kicked Keeksha into a run. Deprivation had weakened her as much as it had me, but she seemed to share my mind. We fled. I heard Dedem’s strong hoofbeats behind us. It can’t be helped, I thought to myself. I leaned into Keeksha’s gallop and hung on.
