I Enlisted for My Father, Now the Wolf Army Answers to Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Oath

At the midnight swearing the silver oath closes on every recruit's throat except hers, and the commander saw it slide off.

They swore us at midnight, because that was when the Stone was strongest.

Sergeant Tolley marched thirty of us across the frozen Yard in our coats and boots, and the cold went straight through the cloth.

The Oath Hall was a square room of black stone with no windows.

Torches burned in iron brackets.

In the middle stood a pillar of grey rock as high as my hip, with a dark seam running down one side.

I knew that seam.

I had seen the same one on a wagon in the Greyfen common, the day I put my hand on a stone and it broke.

"Line up," Sergeant Tolley said. "Palm on the rock when your name is called. Repeat the words. Do not let go until I say."

Commander Stane stood at the head of the pillar with his hands on his belt.

"Recruits," Sergeant Tolley said, "Commander Garreth Stane of the Ninth takes your oath. Show some respect."

Wick stood in front of me, shaking so hard his boots rattled.

"What happens?" he whispered. "Does it hurt?"

"My cousin said it feels like a warm hand on your neck."

"That sounds worse."

"Alderby," the sergeant called.

Wick put his big hand on the stone.

"I give my body to the Host and my word to the Crown," said Commander Stane, and Wick said it with him in a thin voice. "What the chain says, I do."

Wick's whole body jerked.

His head went back and his eyes rolled, and for one long moment he stood rigid.

Then his shoulders came down and he sagged.

"Let go," the sergeant said.

Wick stumbled away from the pillar, rubbing his throat.

His eyes were wet.

"It's warm," he muttered as he passed me. "It's tight."

One by one the recruits went up.

I watched them.

Each one jerked, and sagged, and walked away with a hand at the neck.

I was twenty-ninth, and then I was thirtieth, and the sergeant said, "Morcant."

I walked up.

The seam in the pillar glowed faintly, a thread of dull light inside the black.

Commander Stane's eyes were on my face.

"Palm on the rock," he said.

I laid my right hand on it.

The stone was warm, much warmer than it had any right to be.

A hum came up through the bones of my wrist, a long note, and I knew that note.

I had been hearing it in the back of my chest for as long as I could remember.

"I give my body to the Host and my word to the Crown," the commander said.

My mouth made the words.

"What the chain says, I do."

Heat poured up my arm.

It climbed past my elbow, past my shoulder, and curled around my throat, and I felt it close.

Then it found nothing to hold.

It slid off my neck and ran down my back and left me.

The stone went cold under my hand.

I stood there with my heart pounding and did exactly what the commander had told me to do.

I did nothing.

"Let go," said Sergeant Tolley.

I let go.

I did what Wick had done, and put a hand to my throat, and stumbled one step.

I hoped it looked like enough.

"Eyes front," the sergeant said. "On your feet, all of you. Now we find out who you belong to."

She filled her lungs and shouted an order in a flat voice that had no warmth in it at all.

"Kneel!"

Twenty-nine recruits went down.

They went down all at once, their knees cracking on the stone floor before any of them had time to be surprised.

Wick's face as he dropped was the worst thing I had ever seen.

He looked betrayed by his own legs.

I felt the order hit me.

It was a faint push against the backs of my knees.

It did not take.

I waited a beat, then let myself fold down onto the stones.

I was late.

The sergeant's gaze flicked to me, and her eyes narrowed.

At the head of the pillar, Commander Stane did not move a muscle.

"Up," the sergeant said, in her own voice again, and a ragged murmur moved through the room.

Wick stayed on his knees and stared at his hands.

"My legs went by themselves," he whispered. "I didn't tell them."

"I know," I said. "I know. Come on."

I hauled him up by the elbow.

He was crying without a sound and trying to hide it.

I put my body between him and the sergeant until he stopped.

They marched us out into the cold in two ragged lines.

I was the last through the door.

A hand caught my sleeve in the dark corridor and pulled me back behind the wall.

Commander Stane was very close, and the torch behind him made his face all edges.

"Sir," I said. "I was a bit slow. I'm sorry. The cold."

"Don't."

His voice was quiet and rough.

"It slid off you, Morcant. I watched it."

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