Shadow Of The Mountain (11 page)

After an hour the champion made a subtle shift in direction towards the dark tree line. As they came closer, a tickle of apprehension began to flower in Tenlon’s belly. He didn’t want to enter the shadowy woods.

The sun had just risen a few hours ago, sharing its warmth with the riders and strangely enough, he was beginning to enjoy himself. The grasslands were vast and open, with no danger in any direction. In contrast, Killian Forest was shrouded in darkness, a place where anything could attack from anywhere. He tightened his jaw and asked Darkfire to lend him some strength. The mount certainly had enough to share.

As the troop neared the tree line, Kreiden dropped back and Fenton heeled his mount about fifty paces ahead of the other riders, gripping a spear at his side. The remaining Amorians smoothly pulled into a wedge with Tenlon in the center behind the champion, flanked between Accostas and the irritable Desik.

Slowing to a canter as they entered the forest, the temperature dropped as they glided beneath the canopy. Soon their mounts were kicking up the dry, soft earth of an open trail. The riders slipped into a single line until Fenton found a path wide enough for Tenlon to have a soldier on either side. Shifting in and out of the wedge formation, they continued on until early afternoon without any trouble.

Minutes later Tenlon heard a distant howl.

Chapter 6

Draz was concerned he might collapse as he lumbered up the hill, his lungs struggling to pull in enough of the late autumn air to fuel his strength. He could feel the loose soil of the northern Amorian forest shifting beneath him as he climbed, forcing him to check his footing and dig into the rise even harder. His blond hair was damp and matted to his forehead, his chest aching from the strain. The muscles of his back and shoulders burned with fire beneath the brown academy cloak, and the hands that gripped the small boulder to his chest were slippery with sweat.

No matter how he adjusted the rock—spinning, flipping, or rotating it—the damned thing always seemed to be trying to escape. He shifted it again on the move, locking his grip at the wrist and pressing on.

Always on the move, his mind urged. Never stop.

The sun was nearing the highest point of the day and its light danced in through patches of forest canopy to warm the surrounding hillside. Draz could hear the struggling breathing of the rest of his class behind him, burdened by heavy packs at the back and dulled sparring swords at the waist, but hampered most of all by the large stones each were forced to carry. Normally these runs were done with their shields, but a youth named Orrik had left his unattended on the ground earlier in the week: an unfathomable transgression.

Instructor Trobe ordered them all to abandon their shields back at the barracks. Before setting off on their exercise, a heavy stone was assigned to each. They weren’t warriors anymore, he’d said. They were landscapers.

Draz’s group had been running like this since dawn and was on its third day of it, resting only at dusk when the possibility of a twisted ankle or awkward fall in the dark made it too dangerous to continue. All present were reaching their limit, Draz included.

“Fly, little birds!” Instructor Trobe’s voice boomed down from the top of the hill they climbed. “I would not follow any of you into battle! How could you carry a comrade to safety if you can’t even carry a stone up a hill?”

Draz forced the old man’s mockery from his head, focusing on the incline. How the silver-haired instructor made it to the top so quickly, he could only guess. Just a few minutes earlier he had been berating another student below over some tedious concern—an unbuckled strap or a tangled brown cloak, it was always something. The man’s pale, blazing eyes would settle upon you and make you feel like a child.

Draz ignored the lone instructor and his taunts. All that was important now was the next push of energy, the next step, the next inch.

Just keep moving.

He fought to the crest of the hill and saw Sorkan ahead, already halfway down the backside of the rise. He couldn’t remember the tall runner ever passing him, but the climb had been a challenge and it wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Back in the barracks there was a tale of how Sorkan once ran down a buck in the forest on foot. It was said that for the better part of a day he kept chase, eventually finding it collapsed in a clearing nearly dead, lathered in sweat and surrounded by vomit. He claimed to have sat with the animal until its strength returned and it bolted into the night.

A great story and one most would find hard to believe, but they had all witnessed Sorkan’s stamina during their training on countless occasions. It was as if he could run forever, and no one disputed the tale.

“Down the back ass of it, Draz!” Instructor Trobe barked as they met. “How can you expect to lead men if you can’t even keep up with them? You are to set the example, not fail to reach it.”

Draz stumbled down the hill, hugging the stone to his chest with tired arms. They had been on runs before, long runs, though this was the worst of it. His older brother Kirig had told him many tales of what to expect throughout the years of training, but this bone-weary run of exhaustion was something out of a nightmare.

“You want your cloaks, but the lot of you can’t even handle this!” Trobe continued his tirade as the rest of the students struggled behind him. “It’s just a few stones up a hill! Faster, Jornan! Move faster! You may swing your sword like a man, but I’ve seen drunken mules move with more purpose!”

Draz smiled inwardly, knowing his sword brother was not far behind. Jornan was always close by. The two of them were mostly identical in strength and speed, but Jornan had always outmatched him in one aspect of training: swordsmanship. In this he outmatched them all.

His dark-haired friend was exceptional with the blade, gifted with superb reflexes, sharp eyes, and lightning-quick hands. The two of them had entered the famed Orantak Academy together at the age of eight and had grown as brothers the last eight years.

All of the students were closely knit. It was the way of the academies, the way of Amoria. To live together and stand together, and die together if need be.

Draz nearly fell but caught himself before losing his grip on the heavy stone. He clenched his jaw against the aches and pains, attempting to shut out the little voice inside that was telling him to drop the rock and sit down, catch his breath. Draz never listened to that voice and it only spoke to him when he had physically reached a place he’d never been before. None of them knew when this exercise would end and he decided that must be part of the challenge: the stress of uncertainty.

What other reason could there be? Orrik forgetting his shield wouldn’t typically incur such wrath. A public display of derision and a few lashes were the standard punishment for such an offense, but certainly not this.

So it would likely have to do with the battle, which made more sense. The conflict with the Volrathi in the southern flatlands occupied all of their minds, and not a single step or flashing thought went by without it returning to the forefront of their consideration. And now the instructors were trying to take their minds off it by grinding them into the ground.

Draz shook the thoughts away. One could go mad trying to dissect the motives of academy instructors. Best to stay away from such ruminations.

He ran at a trot and his mind continued to drift as it often did during such trials of endurance. He would one day be a soldier and this was his life.

***

The battle hung heavily upon all their hearts, adding to their already tiresome burdens. The Amorian army had advanced to the flatlands and the academy classes that were to receive their green cloaks at Goridai had been chosen. The lottery had been drawn, and much to the despair of Draz and his class, they were just three months shy of making the march. Had any of them enrolled in the summer class rather than the fall, so many years ago, they would now be on the battlefield.

Draz and the rest would have to wait for another opportunity to bloody their swords and trade their brown cloaks for green. It was enough to make one sick.

Fortunately he knew that Goridai wasn’t going to be the end of these Volrathi, but the beginning stages of an all-out war. Other battles would be waged and they would get their chance. Sooner or later, they all would. Everything was changing around them, the whole world maybe.

Before all this business with the Volrathi and the Amorian envoy, Draz had been having a good year. He was promoted to the first of his class the previous winter, which meant he was slated to become an officer. He would one day oversee his own phalanx in the Amorian infantry, and from there he was a few years away from the king’s light cavalry.

But what he was recently most proud of was his performance at an inter-academy sword tourney four weeks ago. The Kessland Academy had traveled to Orantak for five days, and all training had been suspended as every student was entered into the competition. In the end the tournament’s top three ranked students had all been from Orantak, with Jornan taking first, a smooth-footed tracker named Vextis taking second, and Draz finally rounding out with third. Even though he hadn’t taken the top prize, his victory had been celebrated throughout his class.

His final duel had been with a bear of a Kessland youth named Kole. Kole was fast and strong and, above all else, very, very good. After several close calls, Draz knocked a tooth out of him with an elbow and disarmed him with a slash from his sparring blade that broke two of the boy’s fingers. Cheers had washed over him then and he’d never felt more alive in his life.

If the larger student had been in pain from the damage to his hand, he hadn’t shown it. He had stared Draz down with blazing eyes, and for the rest of the afternoon Draz feared Kole might come looking for him to settle what he felt was an open debt.

But he hadn’t come, and Draz couldn’t remember being happier to see a group of boys leave the gates of Orantak. He could still recall the rush of excitement he felt at the victory. A fine moment indeed, much better than this miserable ordeal.

He ran harder, boots pounding the trail. There was no way of knowing when they’d get a rest and he was currently debating on whether or not to piss himself.

Draz continued to descend the backside of the slope, and traveling downhill almost felt like a holiday. He let a little steam out of his step, allowing the decline to do most of the work. Shifting the stone in his grip, he used his shoulder to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

After a minute, the decline leveled off into a thin valley for a ways. All around him were tall pines mixed in with trees of oak, elm, and spruce, with plots of thorn thickets and baris bushes piled up throughout the valley.

Far to his right, Draz caught a glimpse of instructor Trobe running smoothly through the forest with hood up, his green cloak trailing behind, occasionally obscuring him from sight, as if he could merge with the forest at will. Already he had passed them all. Draz cursed and urged his body forward.

This was such a terrible pain in the ass.

He pushed harder and in a few minutes was once again making his way up another climb, trudging along at a half run. With the pack at his back and stone to his chest, it was all he could muster. Risking a glance further up the rise, he saw Sorkan and Trobe at the top. The instructor had stopped the tall runner who now stood in place, holding his stone suspended above his head.

A break
? Draz wondered. He sped up. Even to pause for a few moments holding the stone aloft would be a welcome respite. After having a piss, he needed about a week’s worth of rest, but this would be a start.

They had been told to pack enough provisions for three days before leaving Orantak, and today was the morning of the third, though trying to measure the length of their misery by gauging supplies would be an exercise in futility. It was a common practice by the instructors to extend training well beyond their allotted rations, almost
expected
. There were no boundaries on these excursions, no laws. Hunger, thirst and exhaustion were skills that had to be harnessed and sharpened in much the same way as anything else.

Draz would constantly map their journey in his mind, despite all the miles of loops and backtracking Trobe had led them through. He knew they were somewhere west of Corda, twenty miles maybe, about a day’s hard run. They must be either making a stop at the capital or pushing north for the Gambit.

Draz hoped it was to be Corda. There was a girl he’d love to spend a few hours with back in Old Haven, near the original eastern wall. It’d been so long since he felt the warmth of a female and time off from Orantak had become almost nonexistent. All this training and conditioning could really get in the way of a bit of companionship, he reflected with amusement.

A bath with Nikki and a few honey cakes, now
that
would be some conditioning he could get behind! Her smile flashed into his mind, her hands, her hips…

He physically shook the thought away as if it were a hornet buzzing near his face. Damn girls. They were always sneaking into your brain.

The last time he had seen her was this past winter, after the tournament with Kessland. Nikki’s father had discovered her bedroom door locked early one morning and begun slamming his weight into it, certain she was with a boy. She was, of course, and Draz had been forced to climb out of her window, half-naked with one boot on and the other gripped in his teeth. The escape would’ve been much easier had Nikki not lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building.

Halfway down, her father had leaned out of the window and begun throwing dishes and pots at him, anything he could find. The man’s aim was poor, but Draz had almost slipped on several frosted window ledges trying to avoid the missiles. Nikki could be heard screaming from above.