Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) by Hilari Bell Page B

ordnancer sounded like a man who has just made up his mind. “As it happens, we’re short of kitchen help. As the army spreads out, we usually hire from the local populace, but very few Farsalans have approached us for work.”
    Good. Soraya managed not to say it aloud.
    “So I’ve . . . I’m being hired?” Curse this ridiculous accent! Where was Ahriman, the djinn of lies, when you needed him?
    “We’ll try you for a month,” the ordnancer corrected her. “If you’ve worked well during that period, then we’ll hire you.”
    “I’m to work a month without pay?” Soraya asked in confusion. Surely that couldn’t be right.
    “No, no, we’ll pay you, and provide food and shelter, but you won’t receive a ranking till you’ve earned it.”
    “Ranking? But I just want kitchen work!” And that didn’t sound at all humble. “Sir,” she added quickly.
    The ordnancer laughed. “You’ve got a great deal to learn about us, Sani, but for a start, I’m Ordnancer Reevus. I know it’s a mouthful, but we’re fussy about rank here, and ‘sir’ is for regular officers.”
    “Yes, si—Ordnancer Reevus.” Her tongue stumbled on the unfamiliar word. She had already noted that the sentries had spoken good Faran; the ordnancer barely had an accent.
    Hopefully she could learn what she needed and depart before the fact that she didn’t soundlike a Farsalan peasant became obvious. Should she have claimed to come from some distant village, with a different accent? Too late now. Soraya bit her lip.
    “Don’t worry, girl,” said Ordnancer Reevus, mistaking the cause of her concern. “We’ll teach you. For now, all you need to do is work hard and obey the cooks. You’ll be paid three of your Farsalan iron coins—mares, is it?—a week.”
    Only three mares? But Reevus was smiling, as if he’d offered a very good wage.
    “That’ll be . . . being fine, sir, um, Ordnancer Reevus.”
    “Come with me, then, and I’ll introduce you to the kitchen master.”
    Reevus talked about the Hrum army camp as they walked through it, explaining that each unit was organized by tens, hundreds, and then into a tacti, a thousand men, which was the largest unit of the army. Soraya cared nothing about the Hrum, but she was surprised by the camp, then reluctantly impressed, and finally amazed. It was so big! She’d known the Hrum army was large, but just walking from the perimeter to the central square where the kitchen tents were located seemed totake forever. It was bigger than most Farsalan towns, though no town she’d ever seen was laid out in such neat squares, with wide, flat roads between them. Even some of the soldier’s tents had wooden walls built halfway up their sides, and the entire square, when they finally reached it, was surrounded by buildings, bright with the glow of new timber. Accustomed to seeing even peasant homes built of stone, the wooden walls looked somehow unfinished. Impermanent. But still, they were buildings, and the Hrum army had been here less than two months!
    Soraya was walking backward, gawking at a man who was driving a flock of ducks across the square, when Reevus reached out and yanked her out of the way of a lumbering oxcart.
    The driver was speaking Hrum, so Soraya couldn’t tell exactly what he said, but she thought the gist was, “Keep your half-witted servant girls off the road.” Reevus replied in the same language, defending her, to judge by the carter’s scowl.
    “I’m sorry,” Soraya mumbled, looking down so her hair hid her face.
    “It’s no matter,” said Reevus calmly, taking her arm to steer her onward. “It’s natural you shouldbe curious—our camp is new to you. But keep an eye on where you’re going. This is a busy place.”
    He kept hold of her arm to assure that she would. Given her recent behavior, Soraya could hardly blame him—and if keeping hold of her like that was intolerably rude by deghan standards, well, he didn’t know she was a deghass. And