I collapsed on the moss, more tired than I had ever been. Sure, the days of shoveling and scraping at the Lemis estate had been hard, but at least, at the end of those days, I could still walk. For the first hour, as long as we stayed on the road, it had been grueling, but bearable. Then, we turned south through the woods. Ulrick had gone back to cover the tracks left by the horses as they left the trail, which gave me a brief break. Then the torture had really begun. I had struggled to lift my feet over the branches and brambles, I felt as if my legs would swell and burst in my new boots. The pain had first come in the shoulders, back and neck, a slow stream, which was moving deep down, until it made the shift to come and nibble at what was underneath, of soul and resolution. Slumped all the way down, eyes closed, I inspired the humus. I was certain that at that moment, one more step, one single step, would have been completely impossible for me. No doubt Ulrick knew this, and no doubt he had pushed me to the limit, to see how far I could be pushed.

"May I ask what you're doing, Sletling?"

I looked up. The val-warrior had led us to the top of a mound, from which emerged some blunt basalt blades covered with moss and lichen. Around it, the forest encircled us with its autumnal colors. The glossy brown of the chestnut trees blended with the ochre of the oaks, while the elm trees, of a conciliatory yellow, softened the general tone. A singing stream flowed below, and the horses had gone there to drink on their own after Ulrick unloaded them. The Val now stood before me with his fists on his hips and his forehead wrinkled. When I began to stammer, he grabbed me by the hood of my cloak, and lifted me off the ground to put me roughly on my feet. "The camp is not going to set up by itself," he growled dangerously. " Do you think that's the life that awaits you? That I'm going to take care of you like a little lord?" I shook my head vigorously, fearing his wrath. Ulrick squinted his eyes. "Then come and help me put up the canvas."

I don't know where I found the strength to do it, but I followed the Val, stumbling under the effect of fatigue. Ulrick spoke while we worked. "I know you're tired, Sletling. You'll be even more so on many other occasions. At each one, you will need to find the strength to eat, set up a shelter to sleep in a dry place and take care of your equipment and your animals." I repressed a distracted yawn, while tying the rope Ulrick was handing me around the trunk of a young ash tree. Irritated by my nonchalance, the Val suddenly stopped and stared at me. "I don't know if you know," he said, raising his voice, "but I'm going to make you a warrior. Every word I say, every gesture I make is aimed at preparing you for it. And you'd better listen to me when I talk to you, Sletling, because one day it might make the difference between a dead Sletling and a living Sletling." I stopped working, too exhausted to say anything back. "Yes, Ulrick," I said in a flat voice. The Val raised an eyebrow and his jaw hardened, "I told you something important at the inn. Remind me what it was."

I bit my lip as I blushed. "I don't remember," I said after a few moments of hesitation. "I'm too tired to remember."

Ulrick suddenly came towards me and I gave ground in front of him, fearing that he would beat me, but I was slowed down by the mail and he was faster. He grabbed me roughly by the haubergeon and, while grumbling, dragged me downhill. I slipped down on my butt, among the dead leaves, despite my protests and my feeble efforts to free myself.

Then I saw Berda and Pike moving apart with their ears folded down. The Val lifted me with both hands, by the leg and the scruff of the neck. Without any other form of trial, he plunged me, head forward, into the foam of the freezing stream.

I struggled hard, panic-stricken, my mouth wide open under the frozen water. Then Ulrick let go of me as quickly as he had grabbed me, and I wallowed heavily on the stony shore. I crawled coughing on a few spans, clinging to the pebbles like an infant to its mother's udder. The Val turned me over with his foot. "Are you awake now, Sletling?" he asked in a sharp voice. I nodded and blinked, dripping and miserable, but brighter too. "What did you learn?" The tone was bossy. I shook my head in panic. "I don't understand," I whispered in a quavering voice. "I'm asking you," Ulrick said insistently, "what wisdom the stream has whispered in your ears. You've just been soaked like old linen, and I ask you what you've learned from this experience."

I shivered, almost certain now that I was dealing with a madman. "If I don't remember what you tell me, you'll soak me in water?" I said with a confused grimace. The Val watched me with interest. "Say it, then. It's important." I contemplated him, completely dazed. Ulrick leaned over me. "I've learned that..." I swallowed. "I've learned that if I don't remember what you tell me, you'll soak me in water." Ulrick sniffed. "Bravo, Sletling," he said sarcastically. "You did it. In fact, I'll only soak you in water when you're too tired to remember my lessons." He spat into the water. "So, did you get your memory back, or do you need to be awaken again? At the inn, I told you that..."

I wiped my forehead. "Never turn your back on the door," I finally exhaled in a relief. "That's right, Sletling," said Ulrick. "Go dry yourself now. Take off your mail, and anything else that's wet, and find a low branch to hang them on. Don't let it drip into your boots, or you'll regret it tomorrow. I'll finish installing the canvas."

I removed my leggings carefully, before going back up the slope with my tail between my legs. Pike cut my trajectory heavily, his mouth full of peat moss that he chewed with energy. Farther on, Berda snorted and it sounded like laughter. I barely removed the haubergeon, bent in half near the trunk of a hundred-year-old oak, twisting like a molting snake, and my belly contracted painfully to remind me how hungry I was. As Ulrick had asked me, I hung it all up, mail, cloak and doublet. Rid of this weight, I felt as if I was being reborn, despite the coolness that announced nightfall.

Bare-chested, I walked towards the tarpaulin without being able to get rid of the strange feeling that each step I took would take me to the sky.

The val-warrior finished piling up the package in the shelter, while grumbling under the effort. "We won't make a fire tonight, Sletling," he said, without looking at me. "Take my old blanket, so you don't catch cold. It's yours now. I bought another one in Woody."

I wrapped myself up under the canvas as the light diminished, but Ulrick wasn't done with me yet. "Come over here," he said. "I have something to show you, before it gets dark." I obeyed. Along a mossy stump, the Val had installed its weaponry. "Look, Sletling," he said, hovering his equipment with a gesture of his hand. "Here are the tools of a vaïdogan. The sacse is my sword. The war hammer, we call it utemme. The long spear, visperre. Here is the curved bow. And the dagger. Look at them well. Touch them if you want. And tell me, when you are ready, which one is the most formidable." Ulrick watched me clumsily fiddling with the different weapons, which I found so heavy that it was discouraging. The bow and the hammer, I quickly lost interest in them, in favor of the sword, which the Val helped me to pull out of its sheath. I had to hold it with both hands so that it would not drag on the ground. The thick single-edged blade had a subtle curve that I found pleasing to look at, and the iron pommel had been roughly carved in the shape of a raptor's head.

"It's a one-and-a-half-handed sword," said Ulrick. "I can use it with or without the shield." I nodded in admiration and finally put it down. The spear was far too long, and I could barely keep the tip out of the forest moss. This earned me an unkind remark.

The Val sketched a thin smile. "You're weak, but not as stupid as you look," he said softly. He put one knee on the ground and patted me on the head, while staring at me insistently. I tried to give him back his gaze, squinting at the rhythm of his outstretched fingers. "That's the best weapon," he said. "A sharp mind. When I killed the man who wore your mail, he charged our wall with shields. Warriors don't live old, Sletling, because anyone can learn to fight. It's not the crowd that masters the "how" that survives, but the handful that knows how to think about the "when" and the "ifs". If the man with the copper mails had not fought that day, if he had understood that you don't attack a line of experienced vaïdogans head-on, he would still be wearing his armor. Do you understand?" I nodded.

"I think so," I replied. "The militiamen that I know are rather stupid." That wasn't entirely true, of course, and I frowned, because there was old Nep, whom I found sympathetic, and even though I had come to despise them, deep down I knew that Sesh and Natime were far from idiots. The Val studied me seriously, but did not seem to notice my confusion. "Obviously," he said. "You have to be stupid to go and risk your life for the whim of a lord. Only stupid people do it."

I smiled and Ulrick did the same, albeit more sadly. "It doesn't make the vaïdogan any better Sletling," he finally said. "The vaïdogan is risking his life, too. The only difference is that the vaïdogan is free to choose his fights. And if he has learned to think, he will choose them well." "My master Narsilap told me that you have no lords among the Vals. Is that true?" I asked, curious. Ulrick stood up grumbling, "Yes, Sletling. It's true. But we'll talk about this next time. We should eat now. Put my weapons away while I prepare the meal."

I obeyed by carefully transporting the warrior's equipment under the tarpaulin. When I had finished, Ulrick handed me a good quarter of fresh bread, a piece of cheese, and a large apple, which I promptly started to eat. The cold glow of the weapons had made me forget how hungry I was. "Tomorrow, we can slow down a bit," said the Val, his mouth full. " It will take two weeks in my opinion. We'll be wintering in the mountains, in the canton of Culon. We'll stay there next year and maybe even the next one." I swallowed askew, too hungry to chew properly. "Culon, that's where copper comes from, isn't it?" I croaked, and the Val nodded silently as I ate. I thought that the metal of my mail might have been mined in Culon, and I wondered what kind of man had owned it, and what madness had driven him to charge such a formidable warrior as Ulrick. We wet our throats with a little fresh water from the stream, and then the Val took me to treat the horses still wrapped in my blanket. He showed me how to pick the hooves of Pike, who remained passive, raising his big legs one after the other, and I gave him the sweet core that was left of my apple.

The high-pitched trills of birds and nocturnal insects became more deafening as the sun completed its slow decline, as if the golden light had muffled the sounds until then. A cool wind blew in from the west, adding to the voice of Vaw the ghostly whispering of dying leaves. I shivered and tightened the old blanket around my shoulders. It smelled like rain for the coming days, even though the sky was almost clear. Ulrick led the horses to our little camp and tied their reins to a nearby ash tree. Then he turned to me, rolling his shoulders.

"Sletling, before we go to sleep, we're going to fight," he flatly said. I had a small laugh, while the Val was approaching with a heavy step, then I saw the harsh glow of his eyes and I understood that he was not joking. "But you're too tall," I hiccuped, half horrified, while retreating in front of him. "And too strong. This is not fair, I don't stand a chance." Ulrick stopped a few spans away from me. "It's not a game," he said scornfully. "Taller, stronger, whatever. Sometimes you have to win." I started stammering, but the Val drily cut me off. "Leave your blanket, and try to hit me."

I slipped the thick wool off my shoulders while pouting. Ulrick watched me, impassive, standing above me like a mineral sculpture of a huge hawk. I could not have reached his face, even on tiptoes, and I advanced awkwardly, without any conviction.

The Val spat on the ground, arms alongside the body. He was waiting for me. I took another step. Ulrick observed me without moving. I simulated a weak punch towards his belly. The Val reacted instantly to my unenthusiastic attack. He deflected my arm with a powerful strike, and I swung on myself with a shout of surprise. His second blow, with the flat of his hand, picked me up on the side of my face. There was an explosion of dizzying pain and I rolled through the dead leaves.

I got up, as disoriented as if I got hit by a hammer. The Val had placed his hands on his hips, and he pointed his chin at me. "What have you learned, Sletling?" he asked. I held my face, trying not to cry. "That you are...," I sniffed, but Ulrick shook his head. "I've learned that..." he said, patiently. I was half crying. "I've learned that it's not a game," I said miserably. The Val raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?" he spat after a few moments of silence. I said no with my head. "I've also learned that if I don't try, you're going to hit me anyway." Ulrick grunted his approval and turned away.

I followed him in small steps under the thick shadow of the stretched canvas, head down. My initial enthusiasm for the life of a warrior was quickly eroded by fatigue and confused pain. I didn't really understand Ulrick. I didn't understand him at all, to tell the truth. That we could alternate smiles, contempt, and now the blows, left me hollow and worried, with a feeling of tugging loneliness. I wanted to please him, to obey him, to give him my trust, and in return he had made me walk in suffering for hours and had drowned me, then beaten me when we stopped. I had never imagined that my first day with him was going to be like that. I understood that it would be hard.

But hard and strange, that the violence would come from him, that I hadn't considered. This inconstancy disturbed all the certainties that I was vainly trying to reconstruct, and I vaguely suspected that it was intentional. I wrapped myself in my blanket without a word, while Ulrick, for his part, greased Berda's bard with a piece of rind, without paying the slightest attention to me. I turned my sulky back while touching my swollen face and finally closed my eyes. In the darkness, the song of the woods was modulated by the gentle lapping of the stream below, and sometimes, like the hoarse breath of wild horns, the first squalls of the deer echoed under the dark foliage.

Then the deep voice of the Val suddenly interspersed the rustling silence. "The blow was not to punish you, Sletling, and I took no pleasure in it," he said with methodical slowness. "But we'll do it again. Every day you will try to hit me." The icy claws of anguish grabbed my guts and I answered nothing. "You have to understand that this is necessary," Ulrick continued. "You'll live if you are hardened, and my blows will harden you."

I turned around sharply in my blanket. "It was out of kindness that you hit me, then," I said in a surly voice. I saw the eyes of the Val wrinkle in the dark, and I thought I could see the shadow of a smile. "It's better that you learn with me, Sletling," he grumbled. "It's always better than on the job, I assure you." The anger was slowly flowing back from my buzzing face, while in the darkness the Val meticulously rubbed grease on the bronze scales. I yawned, trying not to think about the future beating that the warrior had just promised me.

"I don't even know what it means, Slettlin," I said in a sleepy voice. "You keep calling me that, and I don't even know why." I heard Ulrick's brief sneer. "If you've ever seen what comes out of a sick goat's ass," the Val said in a soft voice, "then you know what sletling means, Sletling."

I fell asleep shortly afterwards, without being able to get that goat's ass out of my mind.