They did not rush him. He sat a long time, or so it seemed, in silence, and when he finally nodded, and then slowly read the contract and signed his name—shakily, but legibly—they bowed stiffly and left him alone with Arranha.
The next day, Lawmaster Karik introduced him to Warmaster Ketik, who turned him over to Armsmaster Setik. Not for the first time, he wondered if the gnomes chose their names to sound like beetle-clicks. It was not a question he could ask. Armsmaster Setik had the first scar he had seen on a gnomish face, two of them, in fact. Gird had expected a larger, brawnier gnome, but Setik was built like all the rest. He walked around Gird like a child around a trade-fair wrestler, looking him up and down, then snapped a question at the interpreter who had come along.
"Are all humans your size, he asks?"
Gird shook his head. "No—they come from this high—" he gestured, "to this high—a hand taller than I am. Some are built thin, and some heavy, at every height."
"And what are your weapons?"
Gird listed them—the ones they'd used so far, and the ones he'd thought possibilities. The Armsmaster listened in the usual expressionless silence, and then uttered a brief comment which the interpreter did not immediately explain. "What?" asked Gird finally. The interpreter's mouth twitched.
"He said 'Ridiculous!' "
Gird felt the back of his neck getting hot. It was
not
ridiculous; he had won a battle with just those weapons. The Armsmaster watched him out of black, shiny eyes like seeds. Gird struggled with his anger, all too visibly he was sure, and said, "It worked well enough." This time the Armsmaster's question was obvious enough that he began answering before the translator finished, squatting to draw on the floor with his finger the little battle of Norwalk Sheepfolds. The Armsmaster sat on his heels, watching, absorbed in the recital. But ultimately unconvinced; when Gird finished, he began a rapid commentary in gnomish, and Gird knew, before the translator began, that it was critical.
"He says you were lucky. He says you made fundamental errors in placement of scouts, signaling methods, and in choice of ground. He says if you do that very often, you will kill all your people and lose your war."
Gird had long suspected that his apparent success at Norwalk Sheepfolds had been more luck than skill, but he did not like hearing that hasty analysis by someone who hadn't even been there. Someone who was used to drilling with experienced (and disciplined) gnomes, who would not have to stop a panicky rout just before a fight, who had time to pick the right ground, and dependable people to work with. He wanted to say all that, until the gnomes understood, but the Armsmaster's shiny dark eyes offered no sympathy. He wanted to say they'd won anyway, despite his mistakes (if the problem had really been his mistakes) but he met a closed, expressionless face that was not about to change its mind.
"So what should I have done?" he asked, not quite successful at keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.
"He says you will know when he has finished training you."
Gnomish military training was to the training his old guard sergeant had given as Mali's cooking had been to his mother's. He had been proud of his troop's drill—now, for the first time in his life, he saw absolute precision, and realized how sloppy even his old sergeant had been.
"It did not require much to impress peasants who had nothing," the Armsmaster said. The three units of gnomes who had just shown off would have impressed anyone, Gird was sure. They had moved forward, backward, sideways, opening and closing ranks, had marched one unit through another, and had come out the other end of a long string of commands in the same close, crisp formation they'd begun. "You will not get this, from your humans who are not all the same size and shape. But you can come closer than you have."
Gird felt like a clumsy, not-too-bright recruit again, trapped in the middle of a formation of gnomes not quite shoulder high on him. But he learned—learned not only how to move, but why. That notion of a pincushion that he had had, when he ran around turning his people in place at Norwalk: that had a name, and the right commands to achieve it whenever he wanted, from any other formation. He had always assumed that he needed a large uncumbered space for drill, the gnomes taught him to move a unit quickly and precisely in a room cluttered with supplies, to judge the space available and come up with the commands needed.
He discovered that the wrestling ability which had dumped both Cob and Triga was the very first level the gnomish younglings learned. Armsmaster Setik dumped him repeatedly, no matter what approach he took. "You're too short," he complained once, bruised and winded from several hard falls. "I can't get a grip on you—and besides, you rockfolk are stronger." Setik grabbed his wrist and pulled him up.
"We are not stronger. We know how to use our strength. Can you lift that?"
That
was a barrel of meal. Gird shrugged, and tried. It was heavy, but he had lifted heavier. Setik put his arms around it and heaved, but it did not lift. "You see? You are stronger, in plain strength. It can be very useful. But you do not know how to use that strength. You want to jump at me and do the work yourself. Make me do the work."
They drilled with sticks very similar to those Gird's people used. Setik insisted they must all be the same, no matter the size of the fighter. Gird thought that was another expression of the gnomish need for order, but Setik disagreed. "First: they must all be the same so that your fighting formation can have the same intervals without chancing an accidental blow. Second: they must all be the same so that when one breaks, or someone drops one, that fighter will be comfortable with any replacement. Each weapon has its own best blows; some are similar, but in battle a single mistake chances death. Chance is your enemy, Gird—do not depend on luck. Depend on skill, drill, strength, endurance, tactics: what you know, what you can do. If that is not enough, chance will not save you."
"But what about our tools? I thought we could use farm tools—we did use them."
Setik snapped a command at one of the others, who went jogging off to the gnomish armory, and returned festooned with agricultural implements. Setik picked up a scythe. "Show me how your people used this at Norwalk."
Gird hefted it, enjoying as always the very balance and swing of it, then shifted the handgrips for a better overhand stroke, and lifted it. It made an awkward chopping weapon, harder to control than a mattock, but it could reach over others and deliver a solid blow to a head or back. He had seen only two of the successful strokes, both oblique downward swings that ended in a soldier's back. He demonstrated on the straw-filled leather dummy set up in the middle of the chamber.
"I thought at first of swinging it as usual," he explained. "It could take off a leg. But the backswing's too dangerous—there's no way to control it in formation."
"That's what I thought." Setik scratched his head. "We had a weapon more like a mattock, used with a similar stroke but easier to handle because it balances better. That great long blade out there, and the curving handle, make this one very unbalanced. And even you, with your strength, could not swing it sideways at head level."
"Even if I could, the greatest danger is to the person on my left and behind. I've seen someone killed like that in harvest, a scythe-tip buried in his belly."
"Good
individual
defense," Setik muttered. "One man against several armed—that might work. Sharpen the outer edge of the blade as well. But not a good formation weapon. I suppose you use the shovel like the pole?"
"Yes, but it has that edge."
"Hmmm. What we call a broadpike. It would also work with a sharp downward stroke, but that would not fend off the enemy's. These little things you mentioned, sickles and firetongs and such—good for brawls, maybe, or defense when surprised by an enemy while working—but not for your army." Setik went down the list, explaining and demonstrating why each tool was not worth using as a weapon, "unless you have nothing else. But I would not waste my time drilling with them. If you are fighting with trained units against real soldiers, you need a formation weapon. We use polearms, to give us reach, a hauk in close fighting, and archers . . . do your people know archery at all?"
A hauk, when Gird asked, was a short stick, a club, which could be used for training, or for cracking heads—it reminded him of the guards' billets and maces. The gnomes in formation had hauks thrust into their belts behind their backs, ready to grab when needed. Gird learned how to handle all the gnomish polearms correctly; Setik recommended that he settle on one, fairly easily made, for his own army. "A simple spike on the end of your pole will do," Setik said, "and any smith can make that from scrap metal—those scythe blades, for instance. A real pikehead is better, and you could use broadpikes, but that takes more metal, and more skill in smithing. Sharpening the pole itself is better than nothing, but wood alone is not likely to penetrate metal armor—if that's what they're wearing."
Setik knew exactly how footsoldiers with pikes should maneuver against cavalry; Gird's rude guesses, based on practice with men on logs, came close but would, Setik said, cost him too many soldiers. Archers were the worst threat; the gnomes dealt with enemy bowmen by having better bowmen of their own. Gird was not sure his people could learn that fast. He himself had never been better than average with a bow. And the art of making good bows and good arrows—strong enough to be useful in war—had passed from his people to the Aarean lords. Peasants had not been allowed to have bows, or make bows; what they had now could take small birds and animals, but no more. Setik shook his head, and explained to Gird again just how much damage an unopposed group of archers could do. The implication was clear: learn this, somehow, or die for its lack. Gird began to consider who among his people might know a clandestine archery expert—someone far to the north, who might have friends or family among the horse nomads, whose bows the Finaareans respected, perhaps.
Days passed; Gird was no longer sure how many. The gnomes did not celebrate Midwinter, and refused to interrupt his lessons for it. He hoped the gods would forgive him, this once—perhaps, since he was underground, among gnomes, they would not know. That didn't seem likely; the gnomes certainly thought that the High Lord, the great Judge, knew everything above ground or below.
He felt stuffed with new knowledge, things that made perfect sense during the lessons but came apart in his mind afterward like windblown puffballs. The Warmaster had been appalled to discover that Gird had no idea how many of the lords there were, or how many soldiers they had. That Gird could not draw an accurate map of Finaarenis and the surrounding lands. That he did not know who the king was, or how the king was related to the various nobles, or how the land was governed. They poured all this into him, day after day, every minute of his waking hours filled and overfilled with new knowledge. He had never known there was that much knowledge in the whole world, and he wished he hadn't found it out. Even with the gnomes' organizing skills, he found himself remembering the name of a town when he wanted the number of stones of grain needed to feed a hundred men on march for two hands of days, or coming up with the right way to place scouts to watch a tradeway when he wanted the command that split a column marching forward into two columns, one of which was veering off to the right. He could imagine himself in the midst of battle calling out the exceptions to liability for delivery of spoiled perishables instead of the right commands, and he sweated all the worse for it.
This struggle was no easier that he did not know how long it would last: how long he had to learn what—he now agreed—he needed to learn. Years would not have been enough; he had started with a bare half-year, if he was going to lead the war in the next season. He would have fretted about that, if he had had time. Instead, the worry seeped into his other thoughts like a drop of dye into water, coloring every moment with fear he had not named. He would have discussed it with Arranha, but the priest was often away when Gird returned to his assigned quarters and fell into bed.
At last, with no warning (at least nothing he had noticed) he and Arranha were summoned to the largest of the ceremonial halls, where a crowd of gnomes had assembled. Silently, Gird noticed; there was none of the whispering or chattering of a human crowd. Lawmaster Karik (one of the four or five he had finally learned to recognize at sight) led Gird to the front of the chamber, and spoke lengthily in gnomish. Then he turned to Gird.
"It is time to send you out, if you would be at your encampment before your people are sure we have killed you. Remember your contracts with us; we have delivered to you that which we promised. You have your obligation."
At least he knew the correct response. "I acknowledge receipt of your knowledge and training; I admit my obligation, and swear to fulfill it to the length of my life."
"Witnessed." That brought a stir, and the chorus from all. "Witnessed."
A chill went down his back. He fully intended to carry out all he had promised, but that "witnessed" meant uncounted gnome pikes at his back if he failed.
He had known he missed the sun—even the thin, cold sunlight of winter—but not until he came out into that remembered beauty, and rested his gaze on a horizon impossibly distant, did he know how much. Tears stung his eyes. It had hurt, in ways he could not define, to have his vision trapped between walls so long. It had hurt to have sounds reverberating in those walls, quiet as the gnomes had been. It had hurt to smell no live wind, with its infinitely varying smells, its constantly changing pressures on his skin. They had led him out into a morning of softly falling rain, a cold spring rain that still held a threat of late snow. Between the showers that fell curtainlike here and there he could see long tawny slopes, dark patches of woodland, the soft lavender and muted burgundy of sap-swollen buds coloring what had been gray. He heard the soft whisper of the rain on sodden grass, the distant gurgle of water running away downhill, a vast silence between the sounds where nothing would echo. Cold and damp as it was, it soothed the inside of his nose, easing with smells of wet earth and rock the dry itch from a season underground with only rockdust and gnomes. His own human smell, that he had been aware of as unlike the others, disappeared into that freshness.