Shaman's Crossing

And I knew that the days of my boyish freedom had dwindled to a close. There would be no more long rides with Sergeant Duril; no idle evenings spent listening to my sisters practice their music or my mother read aloud from the Holy Writ. I was no longer a lad to sprawl on the hearthrug and play with lead soldiers. I was a man now, and days of study and work awaited me. Yet even as that thought weighed on me, my fingers found the tiny snowflake of lace in my pocket. Carsina, too, awaited me, once I had proven myself worthy of her. I sighed as I thought of her and the long months that must pass before I even saw her again, let alone the years of duty I must serve until I could claim her. I had not realized that my father had also approached the rail of our vessel until he asked, “And why do you sigh, son? Do you not anticipate your days at the Academy with eagerness?”

I straightened to stand tall before I spoke to my father. “With great eagerness, Father,” I assured him. And then, because I feared he might not approve of my soft sentiments toward Carsina before I had rightly earned her, I said, “But I shall miss my home while I am gone.”

He gave me a look that might have meant he divined the true center of my thoughts, for he added wryly, “I am sure you will. But in the months to come, you must take care to concentrate your mind on your lessons and duties. If you are homesick and pining, you will not focus, and your instructors might believe that you do not have the devotion to be a good officer. It takes independence and self-reliance to be an officer in the forefront of battle or stationed at our farthest outposts. I do not think you would be content to earn a less demanding post, attending more to bookkeeping and supplies than to actual confrontations with the foe. Let them see your true mettle, my son, and earn the post that will bring you the most glory. Promotions come more swiftly at the border citadels. Earn your assignment there, and you may find that your ambitions are more swiftly satisfied.”

“I will heed your advice, Father, and try to be worthy of all you have invested in me,” I replied, and he nodded to himself, pleased with my answer.

Our river journey was the least eventful part of our travels. It might have even become boring, for that part of Gernia is much the same. The Tefa flows steadily along through the wide Plains, and the little towns and villages that cluster at likely landing spots resemble one another so much that most of them have large signs posted along the riverfront to announce the name of the town in no uncertain terms. The weather continued fair, and though the foliage along the more deserted stretches of riverbank grew denser than it did on the prairie, it varied little.

My father saw to it that I did not waste my traveling days in idleness. He had brought with him his copies of the texts he had helped approve for the Cavalla Academy, and insisted that I attempt the first several chapters in each book. “For,” he warned me, “the first few weeks of living in a barracks and rising before dawn to rush to breakfast and then classes will be a foreign experience. You may find yourself wearier than usual, and distracted in the evening by the company of other young men at the study tables in your barracks hall. I am told that promising young cadets often fall behind in their first weeks and never catch up, and hence earn lower marks than might otherwise be expected of them. So if you are already versed in what you will study in those first weeks, you may find yourself on a more solid footing with your instructors.”

And so we went over texts on horsemanship, and military strategy, and the history of Gernia and its military forces. We worked with map and compass, and several times he awoke me late at night to come onto the deck with him and demonstrate that I could identify the key stars and constellations that might guide a horse soldier alone on the Plains. On the occasions when our boat docked for a day in small towns to take on or unload cargo, we took the horses out to stretch their legs. My father, despite his years, remained an excellent horseman and lost no opportunity to share the secrets of his expertise with me.

Early in our journey, there was an incident that disrupted our crew and justified my father’s reservations about Captain Rhosher employing Plainsmen as deckhands. It happened as evening was creeping over the land. The sunset was magnificent, banks of color flooding the horizon and echoing in the placid waters before us. I was on the bow of the ship, enjoying it, when I saw a lone figure in a small vessel on the river coming toward us, cutting a path against the current. The little boat had a small square sail, not even as tall as the man himself was, but bellied out with wind. The man in the boat was tall and lanky, and he stood upright, my view of him partially obscured by the sail. I stared at him in fascination, for despite the current being against him, his boat cut the water briskly as he steered up the main channel of the river.