The Heretic by David Drake, Tony Daniel Read Free Book Online Page A

Scout.
    Abel’s own formality of dressing fell somewhere between the two cadets. He didn’t bother to wrap his lower legs every day unless he knew duty called for him to be out of the military compound, but he never forgot his cap, which most cadets kept stowed under an epaulet and didn’t wear in the compound.
    Most telling of all, Abel kept his tunic on even when days were as hot and humid as this one. His father viewed the Scouts as an indulgence and expected Abel to go into black when the time came for a real commission. But Abel knew what he wanted, and it was the Scout service. His tunic was russet, a color that matched the iron-tinted rock of the Redlands perfectly, and he wore it proudly.
    Abel ducked around the cadets’ melee and made his way across the hard-packed exercise yard. On his left were the dont corrals where the cavalry, Scouts, and signal corps mounts were pooled when not in use. The larger of the donts had quickly established dominance and took up half the space, while the rest of the herd had carefully packed themselves against one railing, leaving plenty of space for the stags to saunter about at their ease. The stags held the entire line of their spinal plumage erect at all times, which Abel thought had to get tiring after a while. The beta donts only bothered flicking up their large neck feathers from time to time when they became agitated or aroused, and the few does were studiously ignored the males. Rutting season was many months away.
    Abel liked donts and, like most military brats, had been around them all his life and figured he understood their ways far better than any civilian. Herd and territory were everything to a dont. When you could see the world in those terms, you could almost always get why donts did whatever they did. Mostly though, Abel knew that a Scout’s life depended on picking out good dont-flesh from bad, and he aimed to become an expert, because he aimed to become a Scout.
    Abel passed the corral and arrived at the large building of black River brick that served as District Command Headquarters. The entranceway was strung with a beadwork screen of Delta shells to keep out the flies, and it rattled as Abel passed through into the cool interior. An outer room held his father’s staff and his adjutant, Lieutenant Terian Courtemanche. Courtemanche was everything the puffy-featured Milovich was not—hardfaced, impatient with nonsense, and muscled like a fighter. Abel admired him, but was also a little afraid of him.
    “Cadet Dashian reporting,” Abel said, pulling himself to attention.
    Courtemanche looked up from a scroll he was proofreading for errors. He motioned Abel past him. “Go on in,” he said. “I think the old man has a bin of filing for you to tackle.” Abel groaned, which caused Courtemanche to indulge in the slightest smile. Then he returned to checking the scroll—and ignoring the presence of a lowly cadet.
    Abel passed through another bead curtain and entered the office of District Commander Joab Dashian, his father.
    Joab was not alone. There was a man in tan pants and belted overshirt. On a nearby table, a pith helmet rested, the mark of a civil engineer. Abel knew him slightly, but couldn’t remember his name.
    Sigismund Reidel.
    Okay. Thanks.
    Reidel and Abel’s father were examining a plan for what looked like, at a glance, an extension of the Hestinga irrigation system. Abel had seen (and filed) many such plans before. This one was drawn on a rolled-out scroll weighted down on either end by smooth River stones. Light from a skylight covered by a translucent section of herbidak hide poured down from directly above the deployed plan.
    “So the water ram would go here,” Joab said and pointed at a spot on the plan. “But that’s a bit far downstream. Will there be enough water remaining to raise it to the second plateau on the Escarpment?”
    “I’m fairly certain there will be,” Reidel answered, but from quavering tone of his voice, even