Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale - Colin McComb

Like the other recruits, Pelagir was blessed and cursed with a memory that rarely failed
him. Yet had he been pressed on the matter, he would never have been able to give a clear
account of his time in Devilsfoot. The ride to the ancient cavern was brief, not more than twenty
to thirty minutes from the dormitory, yet he had never seen the place before.
His first impression was of the sound, muffled through the heavy sack that covered him.
The open air through which they had ridden suddenly became much closer, and the hooves of the
metal steeds began to echo from stone walls. The air became warmer, and then hot. At last the
coursers halted, and the ten squires, still in their sacks, were pitched to the rough stone floor. A
quiet susurrus of clothes, then, as of robed men moving toward them, and a slight clatter as the
steel steeds rode back out. And for the first time that night, voices.
“These kids get heavier every year. Are they feeding ’em more meat or something?”
“I dunno, but you’re right. They’re building ’em solid these days.”
“We should install tracks here, put in some carts, something.”
A third voice, drier: “Or maybe the two of you are just getting old. Stop complaining and
pick one of ’em up… and the rest of you, stop dawdling.”
Rough hands, then, and hot breath through the sack: “I know you’re awake, boy, so mark
me well: rest while you can, because you’ll need your strength.”
The hands on Pelagir then were the kindest he felt for five days.
Images of an excruciation:
First come the rituals. The ten, strapped naked to cold steel tables and wheeled under
bright lights. In the darkness beyond, an amphitheater and the murmurs of dozens of students.
The Archmagus donning a horned mask, black velvet filigreed in white gold and jewels.
Ceremonial words in an arcane tongue pour from the Archmagus, delivered in a monotone, and
the responses of the students in the shadows. It is a calming intonation, a call-response-call
rhythm that soothes and focuses, but the young squires on the table are terrified beneath their
carefully impassive faces. The Archmagus’s students, his mages-in-training, file down the stairs
and take up the instruments that lie on cloth-covered carts near each of the knights-to-be. Priests
wait in the corners, their heads bowed, waiting the call to grant the final blessings on souls
departing.
And then: blood. Pain. Steel.
Colin McComb Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale
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