The Wall | Page 3

of a fire and the feeble glow of the myriad stars? And is such a notion any more unreasoned than the whims of a king who would have us trek through the heat of desert sands to walk these lonely ramparts, marching mindlessly back and forth, waiting for the attack of an enemy we've neither seen nor heard in all the many years the guard have walked?" Tavarius snorted loudly and kicked aside his plate in disgust.
"Centuries, lad," his voice boomed. "For thousands of years this wall has stood beneath sun and sky, watching the turn of the years, unscarred by wind and sand. Countless kings have come and gone. Ten times a thousand men have tread upon its stone. And ten times a thousand have gone to their graves, wondering what it was they were doing when they stood here and wielded shield and spear.
"Think of it, Sartas: thousands of years; and in that time men like you and I have been engaged in a war of nerves with an enemy no more substantial than the ether of spirits. Ghosts. It's no small wonder the King pays good coin for those who would venture so far from home for such foolishness, because he couldn't keep a man doing it again and again, year after year if the money weren't good."
"I don't need money to persuade me of the value of defending our lands and our people," Sartas said boldly as he jumped to his feet and stood towering above the scattered company of guards. "Perhaps it's you have been too long for the sun, Tavarius." And with that he turned and stalked off along the broad ledge that ran the length of the Wall, quickly swallowed by the darkness.
"They're all the same," said Karn as he settled down beside Tavarius. "Bursting with the pride of being the first born of a guardian and becoming one themselves. Full of the misguided idealism of youth." He hawked and spat into the fire, the gob of spittle making a brief hiss against the hot embers. "They're so sure of themselves. They think they know everything before they've had time to learn anything."
Tavarius grinned. "As did we, when we first came to serve upon this stone," he reminded his friend.
Karn laughed ruefully. "It seems so long ago."
"It was, my friend. We're old; and perhaps our impatience with the likes of Sartas is merely resentment of his youth and all the many years that he has before him. The years in which he'll learn the mistakes we've now forgotten."
"Aye. We've grown old together on this blighted rock, you and I," Karn observed. He scratched his beard and sniffed loudly. "But he'll not be long for this cursed place if someone doesn't knock some sense into that thick skull of his."
Tavarius gave his friend a sober look, then smiled thinly. He turned and looked out through the darkness that Sartas had disappeared into and said, "The Wall will soon break his spirit, my friend. It always does. And when it has done with him, he'll come back to the fires and we'll all talk and drink and dream of home. As did our fathers, and their fathers before them, since the first days men walked upon these cursed stones."
"And if he doesn't come back?"
"Then he'll live lonely with his voices."
******
It had been a week, and Tavarius had watched Sartas, unbroken, dutifully striding the Wall, spear and shield in hand, armor always polished bright enough for royal inspection. A week of such scorching temperatures that the seasoned members of the guard no longer camped on the hot gray-black stone of the Wall's wide ledge, but sat, instead, sprawled in the shade of their open-aired tents, sleeping and drinking and doing little else. They seldom ventured forth onto the searing desert sands, except to fetch water from one of the deep wells; and their duties to the King had been consigned to the occasional foray up onto the Wall, where they took much delight in deriding and teasing the handful of new recruits. The latter, like Sartas, still took seriously the task of protecting the lands of Cysteria. The veterans would laugh and jeer, mocking their younger colleagues, and proclaiming loudly that only fools would wear such hot and heavy armor and bear the stifling heat of the Wall's burning stone to guard against the unknown, the unseen, and the unlikely.
"He's a stubborn one, that one," said Karn, gesturing with his goblet of watered wine. He glanced over at Tavarius, who sat at the edge of the shade cast by their tent, staring up at the Wall and the tiny figures of the few foolhardy young men who walked there. They moved purposefully back and forth, strutting in a precise manner, as though on parade, each one