The day of Thurl's departure, I must admit that I thought of taking advantage of the disorder that had invaded Su-Lanté to sneak off towards the Grey-March. Even though I didn't know the paths to the south and didn't know if I would have walked to a dead end or a guardhouse, the temptation was undeniable. I wish I could say that the reason I didn't venture there was due to a number of pragmatic factors, such as the lack of supplies and equipment, the relative comfort of the fort, the idea that there would be some commotion in the mountains with Thurl's trip, or simply a general unpreparedness to return to brownian country. The truth was far more mundane: I felt indebted. In retrospect, such a thing must surely seem absurd. After all, the Ceras were keeping me here against my will. They had indeed taken me through much of the mountains, but that was as a prisoner, and the only real service they had provided was to save me from their own blades. Besides, every moon that passed in the mountains was a moon I didn't spend looking for Brindy.

If this recognition wasn't entirely explained, it coincided with a more ambiguous emotion, which sometimes liked to test the vigilance of the warriors, which became familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, which sharpened the bronze by thinking of the wet scraping that there would be at the cutting of a trachea. I believe that if I maintained this rough moral debt, it was to make sure that I had left the hell of Ifos. In the galleries, but also in the forests, such notions were banished. Interactions were reduced to immediate negotiations, the weighing of power relations was an endless loop, and everything was paid for in the present. The contract of trust I had made with lufe Thurl was - from my perspective - a comeback to the world. My word was both the proclamation and the tool. By honouring my commitments, I validated for myself the certainty of a future, but above all I accepted that a symbolism mutilated by the pit would resurrect in my soul.

The procession that accompanied Thurl and his augur was small, but impressive. The lufe, clad in ornamental armor laced with gleaming copper designs, marched at the head of sixteen tall warriors, each covered in heavy, glittering chain mail. Beautiful embossed shields were fastened to their backs and they carried their war scythes on their shoulders. If they had gone into battle, the men would have been indistinguishable from each other under their heavy visored helmets. As it was, it was their prestige that Thurl was after, and they went out in the open so that the names of the warriors who pledged allegiance to him would be known to all. Liras and Forcas were among them, their hair and beards oiled for the occasion. Behind them came a dozen porters, chosen for their robustness and beauty. In the woven wicker baskets they carried on their backs lay the victuals for the journey, but also the gifts that Thurl intended to give to the other lufes. There were beautiful skins, a few chiseled knives, but mostly jewelry. Gold or silver torcs, bronze-encrusted bracelets, signet rings set with amber or gems and luxury cases. Like all the other inhabitants of the fortress, I had witnessed the preparations, the endless debates between narche Chara and Breanna, in order to decide which offering should go to which lord. If I wasn't in a position to judge the discernment of Thurl and his people as to the destination of his gifts, I could on the other hand attest to the obvious: the lufe was no miser. I even came to believe, at least in part, that he wasn't doing all this just to satisfy some personal ambition.

The morning was stormy, and the expedition left Su-Lanté under a succession of hot showers and the distant rumble of thunder. The whole village had gathered to wish the lord a safe journey. Two white goats were thrown from the top of the peak to assure him of the benevolence of the spirits of the mountain, and horns were played with vivacity until the column crossed the last bridge at the start of the massif. Above, the swollen clouds were macerating in their own purplish glow. Shortly before the troop disappeared to the east, a bright flash of light invoked a beautiful rainbow on the ridge that the lufe and his men were about to cross. Taking advantage of the fact that Thelis had left, everyone improvised themselves as augurs to interpret this sign. That night, the consensus in the fort's common room was that the spirits had thanked the village for the sacrifice of the goats.

The following weeks were unusual in many ways. The absence of the lufe and his men only accentuated the sense of emptiness that reigned in the stronghold. In the ancient days of its construction (which, according to local legend, had taken place long before the arrival of the Sarpian settlers), the place had been designed to house three or four hundred people. After the departure of the lufe and his entourage, less than twenty remained. Yet, against all odds, the excitement didn't abate in the least, but swelled, sometimes absurdly, even though we knew that Thurl would probably not return until the end of the summer. Irrational as it was, the atmosphere suited me perfectly: the Ceras were more accessible than usual, and so were the barrels of berry wine and thorn liquor, for which I was beginning to develop a taste. There was more singing, and even - something unheard of - a shadow dance rhythmed with light drums that was projected onto the wall of one of the natural caves of the peak by means of a bright fire. I didn't quite understand the story (it was about the love of a man and a woman who may have also been a witch), but I did appreciate the singular aesthetic of the convulsed figures on the rock. It was hard to imagine what concrete change the appointment of a king would have on the lives of the Ceras, but for the moment I was content to let myself be carried along by the general enthusiasm.

To add to my good mood, Urixx and Thesarl, who spent most of their time patrolling the mountains, had been assigned to guard Su-Lanté exceptionally, until the return of lord Thurl. Since I was beginning to be able to mumble a few words (and was no longer in danger of losing my head), I enjoyed spending time in the company of the two men, especially the studded warrior, who took in my stuttering attempts and responded patiently. It seemed to me that the pleasure was mutual. Liras and the men of the fort had talked among themselves about my desire to resume military training, and Urixx was the first to get down to work. Every morning we descended, then climbed the peak running, me huffing and puffing and him jeering at my efforts. If I hadn't planned to see Breanna, the dummies in the backyard would suffer our wrath until noon. They were sturdy dummies, blocks of hardened wood riveted to the appearance of bodies and held together by thick chains that jerked and creaked under the impact of our blows. Thesarl sometimes came with us, but it seemed clear to me that, in the mind of the plump scout, this interlude in Su-Lanté was mostly going to be synonymous with a well-deserved rest.

Dressed in light ring armours, the two men played an auxiliary role in the military organization of the Ceras. While the mobile fighters guarded the flanks, the heavy warriors, enclosed in their hauberks, chopped down the opposing formation with their scythes. While this binary strategy didn't seem particularly flexible to me, I could easily conceive of its effectiveness under the right circumstances. A strong Cera with reinforced mail was a formidable opponent on its own. As a group, I could hardly see which line of infantry could withstand the onslaught of their terrible blades for long.

With Urixx, and sometimes with Thesarl, I practiced with the spear and the shield, with the knife and wrestling. Urixx was a decent warrior, quick and smart, and in our first real fight he easily overthrew me. Apart from him, no one else in the fortress was a swordsman (the axe seemed to predominate) and a brownian master of arms would probably have paled at the unacademic handling of his blade. But he liked to parade around with his exotic trophy and compensated for his approximate mastery with an aggressive assurance and total unpredictability. My fighting reflexes were slowly coming back, not without difficulty, but also in a very uneven way. My first challenge consisted in taming my adult body and abandoning the strategies I had learned from Ulrick to face bigger and stronger opponents than I had been then. Instead, I had to focus on more frontal techniques, which made better use of my adult weight, especially with the shield. Urixx was a most valuable partner, because like me he had a thin, wiry physique and tactics that matched it, but there was also his natural serenity. Where others would have grumbled and given up, the studded warrior endured the bruises and corrected my mistakes without losing his smile, even when I repeatedly failed.

When Urixx was busy and I wasn't, I went to the valley with my crossbow. There was no shortage of chores, I often helped those who brought in wood or food, but I still managed to get a few hours off a week. I had mixed emotions about the weapon, because I kept dreaming about Ulrick and the arrow that killed him. Sometimes I couldn't help but feel that by agreeing to use it, I was betraying him a bit. On the other hand, from a purely pragmatic point of view, I figured that if such an instrument could have killed a warrior like Ulrick, it was all the more reason for me to learn to use it.

The Vals had named me Fridkayer - the friend-killer - to mock my abysmal bow skills. Despite Ulrick's persistence, I had never been able to feel any affinity for the yew and string and had long since given up any personal pretensions to the bow. Besides, my own intentions regarding the crossbow were unclear: I still hoped to leave Su-Lanté in the long run, but it was certainly not to become a soldier again. I just wanted to be prepared for all eventualities. "You have to create as many options as possible," Ofrid, the hettman Val with whom I had fought in Ac-Pass, had told me. "The more roads a man builds, the more likely he is to get where he wants to go." Initially, therefore, if I ventured out of the village with the carmian weapon, it was almost backwards and for the good of my nerves: I didn't see the point of owning such an object if I didn't learn how to use it, at least a little. I didn't expect much, so I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed shooting with a crossbow.

Certainly, the first few times were difficult. It took me a long time to figure out how to bend the crossbow. Cocking it was just as complicated until I managed to position myself correctly in relation to the stirrup. However, once I got the hang of it (and found a pair of thick leather gloves to protect my hands) I made great progress. It is said that a crossbowman can be trained in a week while an archer doesn't have enough time in his life, and even if I find this statement a bit peremptory, I cannot deny that it's also quite accurate. That said, it seems to me that there are also instinctive predispositions and, just as I had excelled at the dagger, when my hands closed around the patinated stock of the crossbow something was happening in me that I cannot fully explain.

I used only two of my ten bolts for practice, because I didn't want to damage the others. As a target I had recovered and cut out one of the sleeping mats that the Ceras had left to rot in a corner of the fort. I started by shooting from very close range, at five and then at ten spans, and this way I always managed to get my bolts back. After three weeks of practice, I was hitting the bull's-eye at twenty steps, and I continued to move backwards as much as I dared. A few idle children from the village would sometimes come and watch me, throwing pine cones at me until I let one or two of them shoot so they would leave me alone, but overall, as exotic as it was, my crossbow attracted much less attention than it would have in brownian country. From my observations, as well as from my discussions with Breanna, I understood that the cera culture placed a lot of emphasis on warrior prestige and individual prowess. Ranged combat wasn't seen as an honorable way to fight and the use of such weapons was neither encouraged nor really appreciated. A bit surprised, I had to wonder what a cera hauberk would be worth against my bolts or a brownian war bow, and these revelations shed new light on their past military defeats.

With the definitive establishment of fine weather, the terrace on which I was teaching Breanna became particularly pleasant to frequent. Outside of the lessons, we weren't the only ones to enjoy ourselves there. The flat roof of the pillbox was perfectly sunny and high enough for the fresh air to blow away the miasma of smoke and stench that permeated most human facilities. In addition to the tables and stools we brought in, the terrace had a small ornamental garden at its end, which Marwenn was in charge of, and which she sometimes tended while Breanna and I talked. There grew a dozen varieties of aromatic plants, most of which I knew, thyme, mint, ruzot and lemon verbena, but also mountain essences that were less familiar to me. All of these were used in the composition of the invigorating herbal teas that the old nanny prepared for the two ladies of the fort, using subtle mixtures and alliances.

In Thurl's absence, the management of the village had been delegated to narche Chara, who was undoubtedly the only person I had never seen smile or get excited at the mention of the lufe's political enterprise. Her pinched look never left her and, if she had let me live by omission, it didn't prevent her from sometimes giving me long reptilian looks, full of cold and venom. We occasionally exchanged a few words - after all, she was one of only two people who could fully understand me - but these brief discussions were exclusively factual, and never allowed for any kind of familiarity. In truth, this treatment wasn't exclusive to me, but I took it to heart, probably a little too much.

Although she was less cold to a handful of people - including Breanna and Marwenn - narche Chara was still dry and downright unpleasant to deal with on a daily basis. From what I could tell, cera society had become much less formal since the Greyarm massacre, which had taken place twenty years before I was born. The surviving nobility had retained their titles, but their way of life had forced them to give up many of their privileges. It seemed to me that Chara's superior manner reflected her bitterness at the situation, a kind of protest that was both futile and indignant at having fallen so low. Although I often found her unsympathetic - and on occasion downright deranged - I must admit that she performed her managerial duties perfectly, which had another beneficial consequence: she had little time to supervise the classes I was giving to the lufe's daughter. Her absence left us free to discuss any subject we wanted. So, out of curiosity but also out of weariness of our usual chatter, I decided to ask Breanna about the founding history of the Ceras, a few weeks after her father's departure. Little did I know that the saga of her people would resonate with me in some obscure way, and awaken questions that I had not thought about for a long time.