Weapon of Flesh Read Free Page B

surviving warriors turned and left, taking their well-earned pay with them.  The Master simply watched them go, a faint smile on his lips.  The boy stood stock still before him, awaiting his next order, firm and confident in his newly acquired skills.  When the outer door boomed closed, and the sound of hoof beats dwindled to silence, the Master finally turned to his pupil.
    “Your next instructor will train you in the skills of stealth and intrusion.  You will not kill him, for his expertise is in evasion and the art of silence, not combat.”  He nodded once, a gesture that the boy found strange, until the light tap on his shoulder from behind.
    The boy leapt like a cat standing on hot coals, clearing the Master’s head by a foot and landing in a dodging roll.  He had heard nothing, smelled nothing and felt nothing until the finger tapped his shoulder!  It could have easily been a knife, and could have severed his spine!  The last year had taught him skills with weapons, and to be confident in his abilities.  The last two seconds had taught him that all his skills were useless if he were not aware of an enemy.
    The diminutive man who had been standing behind him was chuckling with amusement, twirling a dagger in his left hand and smoothing his immaculate goatee with the other.  He wore dark leathers, supple with use; many pockets and pouches dangled from his belt.  A number of tools rode in specialized sheaths sewn into the thighs of his trousers.  When the man’s mirth subsided, the Master continued.
    “This is Master Votris.  You will learn from him all that he can teach you of stealth and intrusion.  Follow his instructions.”
    “Yes, Master.”  The boy regained his composure and approached his new instructor.
    “He’s as clumsy as a three-legged ox,” the man said flatly, shaking his head.  “But he’s quick, and agile enough.  We will see what he can learn.”
    “You have one year.  He will report to my laboratory for one hour every day at sunset.  The rest of his time belongs to you.”  The Master turned his back and walked away.
    “Humph,” Votris scoffed, eying the boy critically.  “Well, the first thing, I suppose, is to teach you how to stand without fidgeting like a stallion with a mare in his sights.”
    He moved to the boy’s side, and it was like watching a ghost.  He walked with such grace and fluidity that the boy thought his mind was playing tricks on him.  Not a scuff of leather on stone, no squeak of buckle, nor brush of cloth could be heard, even by the boy’s enhanced ears.  He realized that he had much to learn in the next year.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     Chapter III
     
     
     
    T he boy’s feet padded through the patch of loose shale without disturbing a single stone.  Rain pelted him, slicking every surface, but each time his foot landed, his step was sure and silent.  When the shale gave way to sandy soil he ran on, just as he had for the last ten miles, as he had for every morning of the last year.  Each day he ran a new course, and nowhere on the plateau was there a single footprint to mark his passage.  His trainers had taught him well.
    His age was now somewhere in the middle of his sixteenth year, though he would not have known it if asked.  He was still slim, but muscle rippled under his well-tanned skin, and his height was that of most men, though he would not have been called tall by anyone but a dwarf.  The last two years had added discipline and focus to the previous training.  One instructor had been a defrocked monk of some distant and obscure order, and had taught him the value of focusing his body’s energy.  His last instructor had taught mental discipline, and the importance of a still and ordered mind.  But all of his trainers, however varied in their abilities and strengths, taught him to apply their teachings for only one purpose:  To kill.
    He had learned his lessons well.
    The boy now knew more techniques of