Chapter 36
Teia walked into the ring, praying. She was lean, with quick reflexes. Slippery. What she wasn’t was strong, not compared to the boys in the Blackguard. Luckily, the training favored cutting and slashing weapons. The Blackguard didn’t have any bias against crushing weapons—war hammers, bludgeons, maces—indeed, those were often the best against heavy armor. But those weapons weren’t safe to train with.
They could blunt the edges of a mace, but if one of the monsters like Leo—with the shoulders of a draft horse and arms of banded iron—hit you with a mace, it wouldn’t matter if you had pillows wrapped around it. Bones would break. So they didn’t train with them.
She supposed that the muscular boys thought that wasn’t fair. On the other hand, at least their colors might come up on the wheel.
And what would I do if my color did come up on the wheel? Stab it through someone’s neck and kill them?
The thought turned her stomach, sent shivers of dread down the back of her neck. She saw the look on that woman’s face again, dropping the melon, looking startled, not understanding that she was about to die horribly.
How had that happened?
Her opponent was Graystone Keftar. He was very dark-skinned, cute grin, green drafter. Nice boy. He’d flirted with her a few times. Already going bald, though. Tragic. He was short and athletic, a son of a rich family that had paid for him to be trained before he came to the Chromeria.
Graystone winked at her and spun his wheel. She grimaced and spun hers. Next time he flirted, she’d give him nothing. You only wink at someone you’re about to fight if you don’t take them seriously.
What’d the boys think? That she was training to be cute?
The wheels came up green or red. From Graystone’s self-satisfied expression, she knew it was green—dammit!—and rapiers.
She and Graystone took their weapons. He fumbled with his a bit, but she knew he was playing around. The Blackguards threw their trainees full into the water. If you didn’t realize that these fights were all about watching everyone else and figuring out who was good at what, you were wasting your time. The monthly fights were as much about scouting threats as they were about maintaining your position. Graystone was a competent hand with the rapier. Not good. He was much more familiar with an ataghan or other, heavier blades, and treated the rapier like those all too often. But he knew his basic blocks and stances.
She could win—would win, definitely, if he hadn’t spun green on the wheel.
They took their places in the circle, faced each other, saluted. He winked at her.
Seriously, if he winked at her one more time, she was going to punch him in the face.
She grinned at the thought.
He seemed to take that as encouragement.
The circle was flooded with green light as the overseers slapped the green filters over the crystals high above.
She launched a furious attack immediately. She drove him back, and back. He stepped out of the green spotlight, into the darkness. She pressed harder.
He was just recovering from his surprise when his back foot stepped past the edge of the circle. If he stayed out for five seconds, he lost.
Graystone looked down. Teia’s next strike pushed his block wide—and the next slapped down hard on his hand.
His rapier clattered to the ground and the blunted point of Teia’s rapier came to rest under his chin a moment later.
A win.
“Nice one,” Graystone said.
“Shut up.”
She stormed off. She could challenge one of the boys above her. But she was in the top seven already, and both of those boys were truly excellent. Realistically, at best she could hope to maybe finish number two unless she got spectacularly lucky against Cruxer, who was head and shoulders above everyone else in the class. More honestly, she was probably about tenth best in the class. If she was to make the top seven, she’d have to be a little lucky in what colors came up in the next three testings.
But the more she fought now, the more chances the others had to scout her abilities. She wanted to finish strong, not be strong until the finish.
So she didn’t challenge anyone. It was perhaps a little dirty, but it was clever, too. They all had chances to scout each other during their training time, but they all tried to hold back their best, too. Until they were in.
Teia watched the last bouts, noting the artistry of the best fighters. Everyone was unlucky in the last six rounds—none spun his own color, so it was pure fighting technique.
They were about to be dismissed when Trainer Fisk told them that Commander Ironfist himself was going to address them.
Teia’s heart beat faster just seeing the commander. It was said he hadn’t lost a single bout in his own training. His little brother, entering with the Blackguard a few classes below him, had also gone undefeated. When the two finally fought in an exhibition, it was as if giants clashed. The training yards had been crammed with thousands. And though the fight was close, with every weapon Ironfist had won.
Then there were still legends of his exploits during the False Prism’s War. And now stories were coming out about what he’d done at the Battle of Garriston. They were saying that he’d gone through King Garadul’s entire army, infiltrated the wall behind him, taken out all the cannon crews—by himself!—and then turned the cannons back on the king’s army, managing to shoot one of the great wagons loaded with black powder and killing scores if not hundreds. Then he’d escaped an entire furious army, but not alone. No, simple escape wasn’t good enough for Ironfist. He’d done all of that to serve as his own distraction—and had then rescued Kip and Karris White Oak, running across the surface of the sea, where frenzied sharks were already feeding, only to return in time to foil an assassination attempt. If there was one man who encompassed all that every one of the gathered young people wanted to be, it was Ironfist.
“Well done,” Ironfist said, addressing them. “Well fought, and just as important, well thought. I saw some real cleverness today, and some glimpses of real ability. But I’ve come today to lay a greater challenge before you than perhaps you can surmount. You’re not going to like it. I don’t like it, but circumstances demand it. We Blackguards judge circumstances with equanimity. We are unmoved. And we overcome.”
Everyone was suddenly on the edge of their seat.
“As you may know by now, the Blackguards were involved in action at the fall of Garriston. They performed heroically, as expected. And our losses were grievous. Bullets don’t bypass the brave. The Blackguard has always been an elite force, and our numbers have always been small. We can’t sustain huge losses and still achieve our mission. Therefore, instead of your class only graduating the top seven into our ranks, we’ll be taking the top fourteen.”
The first feeling was one of relief. Fourteen spots! Teia could do that!
There were a few cheers—but they came from the students who thought they could make the top fourteen and knew they couldn’t have made the top seven. The boys who had been certain they were going to make it didn’t look as pleased.
Ironfist pursed his lips. “Yes,” he said. “The Blackguards in previous classes are going to look down on you. I want you to take that on, as a class. I want you to make everyone in your top fourteen as good as the earlier classes’ top seven. We have a mission. We need Blackguards to accomplish it. I will still expel anyone who can’t handle the mission. I’m expanding Blackguards’ remuneration immediately, too. You’ll be elites, and you’ll be paid as such. If you have friends who are excellent fighters or have the potential to be such, encourage them to join the next class. We’ll be running four classes a year from here on, not two. If I’m right, the next few years may see all of us needing trustworthy comrades. Not all of us will make it.”
Ironfist took off his ghotra. His head was shaved bald in mourning, and his face was mournful but stern. “Your predecessors have died defending the Seven Satrapies, defending the Prism, defending the White. Many people will look at you and see children, but I’m asking you to make an adult decision. Are you ready to die, maybe alone, far from home, with no one even knowing what a hero you were? I can’t even promise that your lives or your deaths will accomplish victory. All I can promise you is that as long as I draw breath, as long as I lead you, I won’t let you be wasted. That’s all you get. That, and the brothers and sisters you see around you. If you don’t want that, good for you. Go lead a happier, safer life somewhere else. Don’t show up tomorrow. Because tomorrow everything gets harder.”
He tossed his ghotra on the ground and walked out.
The students watched him go.
A few clapped, but others looked toward Cruxer. He put out his hand, palm down: no, don’t clap. And that—with a dozen students deferring to Cruxer, and Cruxer taking that deference and doing the right thing with it—was when Teia realized Cruxer would be the commander of the Blackguard someday.
“It’s war,” Cruxer said. “The Color Prince has invaded Atash. By now the city of Idoss has probably fallen. And his heresies are spreading. He says the oaths we swear to the Chromeria aren’t binding. It’s a lie from the pit of hell. Go talk to your sponsors and figure out where your loyalties lie. Don’t come back until you know. If you’re not back in a week, you’re cut.” He hesitated. “If that’s acceptable, sir?”
Trainer Fisk had held his tongue the whole time, and now the students looked to him. He was, after all, in charge. He nodded.
Cruxer walked through the trainees with all eyes on him. He picked up Ironfist’s ghotra reverently and folded it carefully, then walked away.
With silence heavy upon them, the rest of the trainees left, too.