[A story of Reiassan taking place at the same time as the Rin & Girey story]

The war had ended.

Hiron was sure of that much.

The war had ended, the papers had been signed, and the camps were packing up.

And the prisoners were being packed up, Hiron included, pushed and prodded and poked into a long line, chained ankle-to-ankle and wrist-to-wrist. Hiron didn’t bother fighting as the legionnaire came to add him to the line. What good was it, when the country he was fighting for was gone? At least it didn’t look like he was going to be killed.

“This one’s mine.” The hand that grabbed Hiron’s wrist was as hard and sword-calloused as his own; the voice had the rough gravelly-whisper sound that only throat injuries gave, and the uniform was field-worn but clean. The chin was strong but, strangely for the Calenyen, beardless. Hiron got that much in the first glance; the first listen also told him the soldier’s accent was, as his commander had said, “field not tent.”

“Tribune?” The legionnaire paused, shackles hanging over Hiron’s wrist. “They’re going up North.” At least, Hiron was pretty sure that’s what he said. The Calenyena language was tongue-twisting and throat-biting.

The clink of coins passing hands was unmistakable in any language, however. “This one’s mine,” the tribune repeated. “I’ll take him now.”

“Tribune.” The legionnaire gave Hiron a little push. “Here, you.” He used the field-Bitrani most of the Calenyena soldiers had picked up. “Go with her.”

/Her?/ Hiron took another look at the Tribune. They all had braids, they all wore the same uniforms. But that beardless chin… Hiron swallowed. The Tribune patted him on the shoulder. “You’re pretty,” she told him, in mangled field-Bitrani. “You’ll do just fine.”

“They teach you about heroes.” The teacher dropped into story-telling cadence as she hopped onto her desk. “They tell you about Empresses. They tell you about scholars. But do they tell you…”

Her voice became a whisper, “about Dirvodirvan and the Sword of Fire?”

The class stared at her. The teacher smiled.

“Dirvodirvan was born to a goat-herder, back in the cold times when the world was hard. He was born in the winter, on the coldest night, he was born to a world so cold the midwife’s hands near froze to him.

“And from his cold birth came a man of fire.” The teacher dragged out fire as if she were savoring the word. “A man of iron, a man of blood.” She grinned at her students, and they shrank back in their seats. “A man who would break chains with his bare hands.”

“I heard he was a slave,” one student piped up, certain of himself.

“In that day, all the Calenyena were slaves.” The teacher’s answer was smooth and sure. “The Bitrani owned the land and the boats, the goats and the weapons, and doled them out only as they saw fit. They kept the wheat and the grain, too, so that all the Calenyena had to eat were river-grass and marsh-root, seeds and moss. They kept the Calenyena hungry and needy, so that they could not fight for the need to farm, could not ride for the need to eat their goats, could not sing for the need to breathe.”

She had leaned forward as she spoke, and so had they. She leaned back, now, grinning once again. “But Dirvodirvan broke the locks. Dirvodirvan set us free. Dirvodirvan, clever man.” She sat down on the edge of the desk and held her arms wide, “found food where there was none and steel where only stone had been, fed and armed the Calenyena using nothing but his wits.” She waited for a count of three. “He broke the first link, and warriors did the rest.”