Read Lesson of the Fire for Free Online

green. Brand was a distant memory, a young
man more like an older brother than a playmate, but strong and
stern.
    The first to choose.
    And Horsa, who had taken Sven in like a
younger brother when his sister had made her choice.
    The elder paused for a long time, looking at
the small crowd that was the whole population of Rustiford.
    “This year, Finn Ochregut has offered himself
as the tribute to Nightfire. This town is in his debt an’ the debts
of all who’ve gone before him.”
    To Sven, Finn looked more like a man who
would sooner plunge his head in a marsh pond than do this. Whether
he had made his choice to gain honor or because he owed a debt,
Sven could tell that the ceremony was the only reason Finn wasn’t
fleeing. Though Mar distanced themselves from immediate family at a
certain age — community was key to survival — Finn’s mother was
crying.
    “The Weardfest has en’ed with the night.
Today comes the wizard who will take our tribute an’ leave us t’our
grief.”
    The crowd did not stir as Sveld walked slowly
away from the dying embers of the bonfire. When he reached Finn,
the elder raised his right hand, palm open to near his own shoulder
in a deferential blessing and salute. Finn returned it
automatically, sweat rolling down his face despite the cool air.
Others in the crowd did the same. Some spoke to him in hushed
tones, but most could not find words.
    Finn’s mother looked into her son’s eyes,
tears streaming down her face. She seemed on the point of clutching
him in a crushing embrace, but thought better of the embarrassing
display of physical affection in public and settled for placing a
hand on his cheek before walking past.
    Sven and his three companions, Erbark, Hauk
and Lori, made no move to leave, waiting for the two across from
them. Finn’s peers left without speaking to Finn, without saluting
him and without inviting anyone else to join them. Sven watched
them, and at first he thought he alone saw them touch hands when
they were nearly out of sight. He caught Erbark looking in the same
direction, but his friend quickly pretended not to notice.
    “Th’ people of Rustiford came here to avoid
this,” Lori said quietly.
    Sven huddled closer to them nervously,
looking over his shoulder. He thought the great wizard could hear
them.
    Dad said the Duxy of
Flasten used to raid our town, and all the towns around us, to take
our people for slaves. That was years ago,
when Sven was just a child, and halfway across the swamp. His
father had said they had lived in a town with clean water and flat
fields on the edge of two duxies.
    “We came here because of this,” Erbark said
dully. He sat up straight, but his eyes were staring after the two
who had just left.
    They took us as
slaves, Sven thought. Two kinds of slaves
were allowed under the Law — tribute slaves and oathbreakers.
Tribute slaves, like the ones Nightfire took, volunteered their
service to repay a debt. Oathbreakers served as punishment for a
crime, repaying their debt to the Oathbinder for breaking their
promise to obey the laws of their community. A slave was supposed
to serve a sentence of no more than eight years.
    Flasten’s slave-takers were magocrats who
came to town and arrested whomever, claiming they were
oathbreakers. The judge was a Flasten magocrat. The sentence was
always the maximum. But it was worse than just lying about
oathbreaking. Flasten then sold the slaves to foreigners, who did
not understand the Law. No one ever returned.
    “I feel so bad for them,” Lori said, and
everyone’s eyes turned to the log Finn’s peers had sat on.
    “I feel relief,” Sven said, letting his
thoughts spill out. “They say we were starvin’, that all the people
Flasten took left us with not enough han’s to feed an’ clothe
ourselves. That Dinah’s Curse was runnin’ through us like water
through mud, an’ we were on the edge of death, when Nightfire came
an’ saved us.”
    Across half of
Marrishland, he added