Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan Read Online Free Page B

recruit.”
    He asked, “What do ‘circumstances’ and
‘recruit’ mean?”
    She answered, “A more common word for
circumstances is ‘situations.’ And recruit means ‘find new talents
like you.’”
    “Oh,” he said. Once again very curious about
all that there was to see in this room, he began to look
around.
    She had already begun to scan throughout the
room herself. About thirty seconds later, after having found who
she was looking for, she called out loudly, “Drill Instructor
Humonus!”
    Having heard his name, a man—who had been
watching two women viciously fight with quarterstaffs—turned around
and began to approach at a quick and steady gait. Even from this
distance of two hundred feet away, Baltor saw that he was packed
with lean muscles.
    His simple attire consisted of a
short-sleeved green tunic, black breeches and boots, and his
rugged-good looks consisted of shoulder-length brown hair that was
slightly wavy, a five o’clock shadow and brown eyes. As he drew
closer, Baltor observed a thin scar that ran up and down the left
cheek on his mocha-colored face.
    After arriving and bowing to the lady, the
six-foot-tall man asked, “Yes, my Mistress, how may I be of
service?”
    “Good Sir, are you currently training any
students?”
    Humonus answered, “To answer your question,
nope. My last student Shami passed his final exam yesterday, though
not without a scratch. Were you not able to attend, Mistress
Lydia?”
    “No, I just arrived back in Pavelus this
morning from a month’s long vacation—what do you mean not without a
scratch?”
    After sucking a deep breath through his
mouth, Humonus explained, “Well…on the seventh and final obstacle
course, Shami paused a nanosecond too long and one of our archers
smacked an arrow into his right buttock! Ouch! ”
    Both he and Lydia began to chuckle with quite
a bit of amusement at that, which drew the boy’s attention back to
them.
    Once the man’s laughter had dissipated, but a
few seconds later, he added with a whole lot of pride, “But
seriously. I am so very proud of Shami, especially the way that he
determinedly maneuvered himself through that final obstacle, to the
finish line, and won!”
    Humonus couldn’t help but chuckle again,
before he concluded, “Still, it’ll probably be a month or two
before he is able to sit down…and his new teachers will allow him
to ‘sit in’ on their classes! Get the pun?” No longer able to
contain himself, he laughed very hard while slapping himself on the
knee.
    Lydia laughed along for a few more moments,
too. Even though Baltor had been listening, he hadn’t been amused,
nor did he join in the laughter.
    As soon as she glanced back at the boy and
his serious look, she stopped laughing. “Well, I’ll be sure to
congratulate Shami later on today. Now, I have a couple of related
questions for you. Are you going to take a vacation or something,
or are you all ready to take on another student?” With a point of
her thumb, she introduced, “This is Baltor.”
    Humonus looked over to the boy for the very
first time, and after only a few seconds of baleful study, he
replied with a sneer, “This boy doesn’t look like a thief. In fact,
he looks like a coward that would turn yellow and run at the first
sign of danger!”
    Baltor, who was quite aware that he was the boy Humonus was talking about, defended aloud, “That’s not
true! You have no idea who I am or what I’m capab—”
    “Well,” Humonus interrupted, “that remains to
be seen, or better yet—not seen! Follow me, boy.” Right away, he
turned around and proceeded toward one of the tunnels located at
the far-left side of the cavern.
    Baltor followed Humonus into a straight and
narrow tunnel—every seventy feet was a blazing torch fastened to
the wall.
    Twice, Humonus came across forking tunnels
and both times, he took the left tunnel, until finally, halfway
through this third tunnel, again on the left side, there was a