Sleet scowls. “A human to assist you? Ha!”
Azmar gestures for me to follow him.
But Sleet shifts and blocks my path with the shaft of his hammer. “This is your sister’s pet. No humans here.”
Unruffled, Azmar folds his arms, emphasizing his thick muscles and heavy veins. Though he has to tilt his head back to meet Sleet’s gaze, it somehow appears that he looks down on him.
I wait for Azmar to say something sharp, perhaps about Sleet’s caste, but he doesn’t. Merely looks. And Sleet, amazingly, lowers his hammer. Grumbling something under his breath, he stalks away from me and retakes his post.
I am utterly dumbfounded. But Azmar gestures for me to follow, so I do, as quickly as my sore body will allow. We walk past several of the long tables where an array of trolls sit, men and women, gray and green, large and less large. Most don’t notice me, as they’re focused on their own work, hunched over with pencils and charcoal and quills. I glimpse a hallway down to a blacksmith bellows. There is another blacksmith in the trade works, but this one must work only on city construction.
Several high tables, almost like desks, occupy the far side of the room. Azmar stops at the first, then, seeing the second unoccupied, takes the chair from it and sits it at the corner of his own. With a subtle gesture, he beckons me to sit.
The stool seat is nearly five feet off the ground. My injuries protest as I lift myself up, but I don’t ask for help, though Azmar scrutinizes me as though ready to offer it.
Paper and a couple of slates litter his desk, while little tin cups organize his writing utensils. Several rulers, along with two leather books, press against the corner.
“What caste is he?” I whisper, tilting my head toward Sleet.
Azmar doesn’t look over. “Deccor.”
“But he’s huge.”
Azmar meets my eyes, making me feel foolish. I rush to explain. “He would do well in the caste tournament, wouldn’t he? Why is he only a Deccor?”
“His challenge to a higher caste has to be accepted, either by previous agreement or stance of challenge,” he explains. “Wise trollis do not accept challenges they cannot win.”
“What is ‘stance of challenge’？”
He arranges a few of the papers. “When a victor in a battle remains on the field to take on new opponents, to increase their pips.” He touches his shirt, where those small blue stones would be, if he had any.
“So winning two fights in a row gets them a higher caste, and then a higher rank within that caste.”
A brief nod. “How is your geometry?”
Doubt creeps into me. “I can determine the area of a triangle . . .”
He appears neither disappointed nor surprised. After grabbing some chalk and one of the slates, he begins jotting down equations in handwriting that is becoming more and more legible to me. I’m surprised how small his numbers are, given the size of his hands.
He offers me the slate, followed by a piece of parchment full of dimensional shapes and material weights. “Calculate the tributary area and multiply it by the appropriate weights—the sections should say what material is used. Put the results on the right.”
I marvel at the numbers and letters and compare them to his drawings.
He asks, “Do you understand?”
“Oh yes.” I set the slate down. “I’m just . . . It really is rather intriguing.” I grab a pencil and start plugging in the figures. I can feel Azmar’s gaze as I do the first equation, but he soon returns to his own work. My arithmetic skills gradually return to me, and I can’t help but smile. I haven’t had a chance to use them in a long time. The joy of mental work is sweeter than wine.
When Azmar returns his attention to me, I ask, “What is all of this for?”
“Calculating load.” He takes the first page from me and glances over my writing. He appears pleased. “The council wants an extension behind the slayers’ armory, regardless of our insistence that it isn’t wise.”
“Why isn’t it?”
He sets the paper down and picks up another. “Because of the lack of weight distribution along the canyon wall at that point. There’s too much load.”
“The load is what the addition will hold?”
He regards me with those dark-harvest-gold eyes, as though unsure of my question. To clarify, I say, “I’m curious. I . . . I love to learn.” Time with my tutors was always my favorite, partially because it meant time away from everyone else. “This all fascinates me.”