“You trouble me, MacDonald.” Her voice was clear and level. Dwyrin flushed.

“You’re strong-as strong as Odenathus or I, yet you haven’t the control of a first-year apprentice. You’re quick, but quick to make a godless mess. You can summon fire from dead stone, but you take an age to draw the simplest ward. Never have I seen someone work so hard at this and fail so miserably to master their craft.”

Dwyrin stumbled a little at the biting tone in the girl’s voice, and then he sat down too.

“In single combat, you can give the journeymen and even some masters a run for their money-but fighting in a five, as we must if we are to survive on the field of battle- you’re a menace or worse. You and Eric were dead a dozen times today-all because you cannot seem to get the concept of teamwork through your fat barbarian head.”

Zoe paused, pursing her lips and then letting out a slow breath. There was a tick-tick sound on the rocks as she absently drummed her baton against the stone. “Centurion Blanco asked me today, after the tribune was finished grinding my head off with a mill wheel, if I wanted to send you to another five. Some capricious god must have stolen my thought, because I told him that I would take care of the problem.”

Dwyrin shivered, feeling the smooth cold surface of the baton come to rest on his neck.

Zoe leaned close. Her could feel her breath on his forehead. “You’re a donkey, MacDonald, fit only for simple tasks. But by Hecate, you are my donkey and I will.see how much weight you can carry. You will learn to fight with us. You will learn to be effective. If not, then I will dispose of you myself. Do you understand me?”

Dwyrin nodded, then felt her move away in the darkness. The sound of her sandals crunching on the soil and gravel of the slope stayed with him for a time. He stayed on the rock, feeling the night close around him. Tears dripped down his face and he fought back a sniffle. He was sixteen years old, old enough to take this. Stars wheeled overhead, full and bright in the clear desert air.

A wagon wheel trembled in the air. Unsupported, it wavered back and forth in the clear space in front of the cohort tents. Dwyrin and Eric stood on either side of the wooden disk, their eyes closed. Sweat was streaming down the Hibernian’s face, matting his thin tunic against his chest. Eric was not doing much better; his chubby fists were clenched hard at his sides and he was breathing heavily. The wheel rose up another three handspans, then began to rotate drunkenly. Dwyrin felt the heavy wood and iron slipping from his mental grasp. He bit his lip, putting forth his will, trying to stabilize the disk.

It swung back toward him as he took on the weight of it himself. Eric staggered forward, one hand rising. The wheel suddenly sped up and whipped through the air at

Dwyrin’s head as the Northerner lost control of it.

Dwyrin cried out, seeing the wheel spin at him, and pushed back hard, trying to keep it from him. The wheel reversed course, flipping over in midair, and shot back across the little square. Eric leapt aside, arms windmilling and his eyes wide in fear. The wheel tore through the row of tents behind him with a ripping sound and Smashed into the side of a wagon. Dwyrin sat down heavily, sweating, and buried his face in his hands. He was trembling.

“So,” said a grim voice from above him. “No luck with the wheel exercise either.”

Dwyrin scrambled to his feet and stood up, facing the centurion. For a change, Blanco did not have an expression of furious anger fixed on his face. Instead, there was a resigned look tinged with something close to pity. Zoe‘ stood behind the centurion, her head barely coming to her shoulder. Her eyes were very grim, and her face was drawn. Dwyrin swallowed but said nothing.

“Lad, you’ve got to learn to work with another sorcerer.” Blanco’s voice was even. He motioned to the wrecked tents and the soldiers peering out of them in alarm.

“This exercise is simple, very simple, not much more than doing the weave. Just lift it up together and make it spin. It’s a wheel, for Mithra’s sake, it wants to spin.”

“The, ah, the weave, sir?” Dwyrin felt like his head had been clubbed with a hammer.

“Yes, MacDonald, the weave-you know, like in school?”

Blanco stopped, his eyes narrowing, watching the incomprehension on the boy’s face.

“Like, say”-he paused, searching for the right word- “like platting the twishersl Is that what they call it in your homeland? Or-ah, what do they call the weave in Palmyra, Zoe?”

“The weave, sir. Just the weave.” Zoe’s voice was clipped and biting. She was not pleased.

“I don’t know, sir, I’ve never heard of that.” Dwyrin felt a little light-headed.

Blanco leaned close, taking a good look at his newest recruit for the first time. He realized that he had been lax, leaving the newest sorcerers to their five-leaders. He had seen the Hibernian boy for weeks now but had never taken the time to find out the boy’s background or any details of his life at all. The centurion pulled at his ear, scratching at a scar that ran along it. Considering the boy now, he seemed younger than he had first thought. He hadn’t even reached his full growth yet. He was muscular in a wiry sort of way, but he still carried a little baby fat. Blanco put his heavy fists on his hips. He had seemed a troublemaker when he first showed up, what with losing his horse and all, but…

“Tell me about your schooling, MacDonald. Which school, which master, everything about it. Which circle have you reached, what techniques did they teach you?”

Dwyrin gave him a sickly grin. No one had asked him anything about how he came to be in the Legion. They had just accepted his appearance and put him to work. Now, faced with the prospect of being turned out, he realized that he wanted very much to succeed here, to earn the respect of Eric and Odenathus, even Zoe. He squared his shoulders unconsciously and summoned the courage to look the centurion straight in the eye.

“Well, sir, a witch-hunter found me when I was eight years old…”

Blanco sat down heavily in his folding camp chair. He was a thickset man, with beefy thighs and arms like tree roots, so the bronze and wood chair squeaked alarmingly under his weight. The waxed cloth roof of the tent admitted a pale fraction of the sun beating down outside, but Zoe could see the other chair. She sat down too, though her weight did not test the fabric of the camp chair. The centurion’s face was closed and she could not read his thought in his eyes.

He seemed to be looking very far away. While she waited, Zoe tried hard not to fidget. She had a terrible desire to start twirling the loose end of her hair around her finger. Despite this, she remained seated, her hands on her dark-brown thighs, waiting.

After nearly an hour, Blanco blinked and moved a little in his chair. He scratched the stubble on his chin and opened a wooden trunk at the base of his bed. He pulled a heavy skin out and uncorked it. Two battered tin cups followed, which he placed on the little map table, and he poured a measure of watery red liquid into each one. After stowing the skin, he downed one cup.

“Have a drink,” he said, pushing the other toward her with a thick fingertip.

Zoe grimaced and downed the shot of flavored vinegar in one gulp. Her throat stung at the passage of the tart liquid. She put the cup back on the table. “Thank you, sir.”

Blanco made a humph sound at that.

“So,” he said, “what are you going to do with your troublesome recruit now?”

Zoe shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. We’ll have to start all over with him, I suppose. He hasn’t received half the basic skills I thought he had-he hasn’t even been exposed to things that the rest of us take for granted.” She sighed, picking the cup back up and turning it over.

“It seems more than a little cruel to send him to the levy without any skills. I wouldn’t have expected it of one of the Egyptian schools-they pride themselves on taking good care of their students.”