At the evening meal – an uninviting colourless stew that tasted vaguely of lentils and smelled, like everything else, of latrines – Aedan tried again to apologise and met with the same result. It was no less embarrassing.
He realised that he was feeling constantly awkward. When there were activities under way, he, like everyone, was slotted into some kind of social grouping by duties or by the officials. He belonged. But in the idle time, little clusters or pairs of friends drew together and he was left standing alone. Peashot had joined in with another group.
As a small-town boy, Aedan had never really made friends; he had simply grown up with them. He wasn’t sure what to do or how to do it, and began to feel increasingly out of place. At times, when he took his bowl to a table by himself, too uncertain to impose on anyone, the loneliness and embarrassment of his isolation became so strong he started to consider just walking out on the whole thing.
One evening, approaching his empty table again, he decided it was time to put timidity aside, time to cross some barriers. He recognised a rowdy group from his dorm and sat at the end of one of their benches. Since leaving the Mistyvales he had still to share a decent conversation with anyone his age, so he was more than a little uneasy. As he sat, the talk died. All eyes turned on him.
“You’re the northerner, aren’t you?” asked a strong, dark-haired boy with handsome features and the most unusually bold, piercing eyes. Aedan had seen him often. Malik was his name. He was popular, definitely someone who would be good to have as a friend.
Aedan smiled. “Yes, I got here before the winter.”
Malik frowned. “Why would I care when you got here?”
There was a ripple of partly withheld laughter. Aedan felt a sudden prick of doubt. Had he aimed too high with this group? They seemed to be speaking a language of their own to which he was not privy. Their eyes were full of it.
“Tell us something interesting about where you’re from, North-boy,” Malik said.
“What do you mean?”
“Anything – something that we wouldn’t know.”
The boys gave him their full attention, but not in a considerate way. Their fascination reminded him of how jackals or vultures behave around a stumbling fawn. He tried to string his thoughts together, stumbling.
“Well, uh, something, that maybe, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the snow there can easy get to three feet on the fields. In a bad winter, that is, sometimes.”
Blank eyes regarded him.
“Sorry, North-boy, but was that it? The interesting thing. Deep snow?”
“Well, it was always very exciting, uh, that is for us at least.” Aedan was thrashing about in his memory for anything that could rescue the situation. “Once we lost a sheep and we had to burrow around for half a day to find it. Thomas actually – Thomas was my friend there – he got lost himself even though he was only twenty yards from the pen.” Aedan laughed to cover his discomfort. He laughed alone.
Their eyes were lances. Then, when he fell silent, the whole table erupted in hard, barking hilarity. He had never known laughter could be so unfriendly. His appetite was gone, but he dropped his eyes and ate simply to disguise his humiliation and confusion.
He did not belong here. They did not want him.
“Hey North-boy, sing us a song. They say that you northern lads have voices like milkmaids.” The laughter broke out again. This time the table alongside had caught on. More than one reference was made to his pretty bonnet bandage that covered most of his head. “Silence everyone! A song, a song!” They stared at him, hungry.
Though nothing showed on his face, Aedan was drowning in a maelstrom of anger and tears. He dropped his spoon in the bowl, stood, turned, and headed for the gate. A wave of boos and jeering rose up and struck him from behind. It only helped to carry him forward.
When he reached the gate, it was shut. The guard had slipped away. There was another boy waiting, tall and skinny as a winter tree.
“You also wanting to leave?” the other asked.
Aedan nodded. Then he looked up. “Your accent is different,” he said.
“I’m from Verma.”
“Don’t fit in?”
“Not with this crowd,” the tall boy said. “Anyone from outside Castath gets treated like gutter scum. Not all of them are bad, if I’m honest, but there’s enough of the bad ones to turn everyone else rotten.”
“Oi!”
Both boys looked out through the gate and Aedan took two rapid steps back. The Anvil stood just within the light cast by the barrack torches, his gang assembling around him. He strode forward, dipping and hoisting his shoulders, thrusting his chin, jerking from side to side. This time there was no mistaking it. The half-dancing gait was a studied and perfected expression of raw hostility – threat, challenge, defiance all combined and embodied. It was almost as if belligerence had been turned to art and then made to walk.
For the first time, Aedan got a proper look at the Anvil. He was not the biggest member of his gang by height or breadth, but he was certainly the biggest by presence. He swaggered and jinked with an expansiveness and intrusiveness that dominated the space around him. Quick hands twitched and quicker eyes constantly thrust here and there like accusing fingers. He did not wear rags. His clothes looked surprisingly good, but nobody would have taken him for a young man of class. The way he carried himself bespoke his character all too clearly.
“Look at the little army men! Nice and safe behind their little gate,” he shouted. With a sudden lunge, he reached through the bars and swung a thick club, catching the tall boy on the cheek and knocking him to the ground. There was a roar of applause from the gang.
“Oi, would you be looking at that one,” said the Anvil, pointing his club at Aedan. “I think we remember you, and I think we know your name. What’s his name, lads?”
“Ooze-head!” they roared.
“Come out here Ooze-head. I think you’ll be needing some attentions from us. Last time you left early. But I heard you stayed to watch your friend. Isn’t that so?”
The boy from Verma was on his feet again, tottering slightly. “What does he mean?” he asked Aedan, his voice shaking.
“Don’t know. Never seen him before,” Aedan lied, immediately wishing he hadn’t when he saw that the boy believed him without question. It felt like the time he had tricked a lamb into taking a mouthful of feathers and glue. At first Aedan had thought it would be funny, but by the end he was laughing only to conceal a growing misery at betraying the simple animal’s trust.
And this open-faced boy had not deserved a lie, even a little one.
Aedan’s thoughts were interrupted as something struck his shoulder hard. He saw the club skittering past into the shadows. He turned and walked away from the gate.
“Thief! Thief!” he heard from behind him. “You stole my club! You’ll be coming out here and handing it back from your knees or I’ll hunt you down, you duck-livered coward!”
Aedan kept walking. He saw the guard hurry back to his post and heard him shout at the gang, but the Anvil was not to be put out by a soldier behind a fence. He shouted right back and the jeers rose from the rest of the gang too.
“Come into our world, soldier man. Let’s see how long you last. We’ve marked you now. We’ll know you. We’ll learn where you live, who your family is. You fetch us that little thieving coward and toss him out here or you’ll be sorry.”
It was the last Aedan heard. He hurried out of sight, behind the buildings and found an empty fire pit. By the time he was able to think clearly, the surge of self-pity that had almost borne him out the gate had passed. The boy from Verma settled on the other side of the fire pit. There was blood on his cheek, and it looked like he was trying not to cry.
“What’s your name?” Aedan asked.
“Lorrimer.”
Lorrimer was as awkward as he looked, but there didn’t seem to be a mean bone in his gangly frame. And Aedan discovered that it only takes a single friend to p
ut loneliness to flight. He would be able to face the next day. They both would.
The rest of the month continued in a medley of exercise – running, hauling, climbing, even icy swimming, and a good deal more menial labour. Aedan and Lorrimer remained, but some boys found, as Balfore put it, that other callings sang more sweetly in their ears.
Near the end of the month, everyone was told to gather in the courtyard. The chief supervisor announced that they would have one day to rest, and recommended that they make good use of it. “More than two hundred of you will be going home,” he said. “The first round of eliminations takes place the day after tomorrow.”
Aedan bit on a knuckle. He knew he was not ready.
“This elimination is one that tests agility, strength and stamina.”
It was ironic that Rodwell, the soft, rotund master who embodied none of these qualities, should be explaining the rules.
For two nights Aedan had fretted over the need to sleep, and more or less kept himself awake with the fretting. But there was no lethargy now. He fixed his attention on Rodwell, not missing a detail. The crisp morning caused puffs of steam to dance around the man’s mouth as he continued in a surprisingly thin voice for one of such generous girth.
“You will run from here to the army farm where you will complete a series of obstacles, return along a trail to this square, and finish between the two orange poles. Orange flags have been set out to mark the entire course.
“The rules are simple. First: You must complete the whole circuit including every obstacle. Anyone who is unable to complete an obstacle will be punished – carrying rocks, crawling through mud, that sort of thing. In every case the punishment will take longer than the obstacle, so skill and agility will be rewarded. The second rule: No interfering with your opponents. Foul play will result in disqualification. The first eighty to complete the course will progress to the second month and the final eliminations.”
Aedan took his place at the start, trembling partly with excitement but mostly with worry. He had recovered well from his injuries in the Mistyvales, but he had not yet reached his full strength, not even close, and the fire had set him back further. Looking at the crowding boys, he wondered if he would be able to beat enough of them. Most were bigger than him and many looked strong, as if they had been training for years. His worry deepened. What would Osric say if he failed at the first trial?
Race officials approached.
The babble of nervous voices died down. Aedan found he was breathing fast. The churning in his gut made him feel suddenly light-headed and weak.
Two officials raised their flags.
Silence. Every head was raised, every muscle tensed.
The flags dropped.
Aedan felt only partly conscious. The roar of voices, the shoves from all sides, and the working of his own legs were dream-like, as if his senses had overloaded. Then it all burst on him and he found himself in the centre of the surging mass. Some were sprinting ahead, others jogged, husbanding their strength, some broke off to the sides and filtered into the back roads, but most kept together and tramped up through the main streets towards the city gate, temporarily disrupting the morning’s business. He recognised Lorrimer, the tall boy from Verma, loping away near the front on his long spider-legs. The boy could certainly run.
It was as they were passing through the gate that a tight group drew up alongside Aedan. The large boy nearest him growled, “Go home, North-boy,” and gave him a sudden shove to the side. Aedan lurched and just managed to get a foot underneath his weight, but the shove had carried him off the road and he trod on an apple-sized stone that turned beneath him. In one horrible instant he felt and almost heard the rending of ligaments as his ankle twisted. Immediately, he took the weight off the foot and tumbled into the rocks. The bruises were nothing in comparison to the pain that had shot through him, that still thrummed in his ankle. He sat up and looked around. There were no officials here, nobody who could make a case for him.
He got to his feet carefully and tried a few steps. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared. As long as he avoided uneven ground it was a pain that could be endured. Another twist would finish him off though. Making sure he kept away from other runners, he set out, grimacing at the first strides until he became used to the little stabs of pain. He was sure he would not be the only one to sustain some injury, and it was going to take a lot more than a mild sprain to hold him back.
Once he had found his pace again, Aedan kept slightly behind the middle of the field, preserving his strength. He knew the day would drain him of every last drop. The route was familiar, but somehow it was different today. He wondered why he was breathing so hard. Then he realised that even the moderate pace of the midfield was faster than any pace they had set before. But if he slowed down he would never make the first eighty. He tried not to think about the distance, and kept his eyes on the ground, setting targets of fifty yards at a time.
When they arrived at the farm, orange flags guided them to the first of the obstacles – a series of a dozen ropes that had to be scaled, traversed and descended. Falls meant starting again. Aedan decided to catch his breath before beginning. He knew it had been the right decision when he watched a group of panting boys run past him and attempt the climbs. They all slowed, began trembling, and slid down, burning their hands.
Once he was breathing normally, Aedan took hold of a rope and scaled it with little difficulty. From there he traversed another that was fastened between beams, climbing underneath, using hands and heels. He descended and ascended the next two ropes and traversed again. For one who had spent much of his time clambering through high branches, this section was a breeze. He was a lot nearer the front of the field when he descended the final rope and set off for the next obstacle.
The track wound over a steep hill coated in a wintery fur of long dry grass. On all the north- and west-facing slopes, the grass was frosted white, awaiting the sun’s touch. Aedan looked out from the crest over a series of hills dotted with orange flags. The distance was intimidating, but it was less worrisome than the spectacle immediately beneath him. Sunk partly in the shadow of the slope was a muddy dam, and its surface was alive with struggling, splashing bodies. He cringed. That water would be freezing today. The swim, however, was only about three hundred yards and there were rescue boats at various points – they would probably mean both life and penalties for those who clung to them. A few boys crawling around the edge of the dam let him know what the penalty would be in this case.
He ran down slope and sat on the bank to remove his shoes, but the nearby official shouted to him that the dam was to be swum fully dressed. Aedan groaned. That would turn the three hundred yards into a lot more. He ran into the water, gasping with every deepening step. The water was so cold it stung. When he was deep enough he began paddling. At first he tried to kick, but his encased feet seemed to pull him backwards. He found the best was to bend his knees and let the shoes drag in his wake, while pulling with his arms. It was like paddling a mostly sunken coracle. The going was very slow, but fortunately he had no lingering injuries on his arms and they felt strong enough. He began to drift past a few swimmers who bobbed and splashed around him.
From all sides, he could hear rapid breathing, and by the time he reached the middle, his breath was beginning to whine. The water was bitterly cold here, sapping his strength further. He saw several boys clinging to boats. Aedan turned on his back and propelled himself just enough to keep his feet from sinking, but without the use of his legs, it proved hardly worth the effort. He was growing worried. The water here was dark, cold and deep. Would it not be wiser to head over to a boat and rather do the mud crawl?
“Two laps around the dam if you touch a boat,” the nearest official called.
Two laps! He would never make up that loss. The shore was not far away. He decided to push on. Breathing fast and paddling with short, almost desperate strokes, he turned away. There was no concealing the urgency in his panting now. The shor
e hardly seemed to come any closer. He was sinking deeper in the water than he had at first, obviously slowing.
The scream for help was on his lips when he sensed a change. It was growing warmer. Sudden hope gave him a burst of strength. He clawed at the water with doubled efforts until he paddled into a sun-warmed, muddy swirl and decided to test the depth. His feet touched the bottom. He waded the last forty paces and stumbled up the bank, water cascading from his clothes and sloshing in his shoes. It was high time for a rest, but another swimmer crawled out of the water behind him and set off for the next obstacle. Aedan stumbled after him.
The next sections involved climbing over nets and walls, filling a leaking bucket from a nearby river using a cup – sprinters required fewer trips and finished in a fraction of the time taken by joggers – crawling through muddy trenches, carrying containers of rocks up a hill and, finally, running the homeward trail.
It was the rock-haul that finished Aedan. He had been able to nurse his ankle over the other obstacles, but doing so in this one had put too much weight on his bad leg. It ached in a way that worried him. He knew his reserves were running out. Though he had gained much ground on the agility sections, he began to lose it again as he started the trail. Runners passed him – ten, twenty, forty. Eventually he stopped counting. A glance behind showed lots of empty land and little else.
He imagined the disappointment on Osric’s face, and decided that he had more to give. Blisters ate into his feet as he clumped along the trail. He had to walk the hills, but flew down the declines with long runaway strides. He passed several boys on the last downhill, the achievement spurring him on. But when he reached the level at the foot of the slope, the feeling of weightlessness died under the crush of exhaustion.
He stumbled to a halt. His shoes felt like millstones. Hands on knees, he doubled over, groaning as bones and muscles made desperate complaints. He was too tired even to swat the flies that settled and began crawling over his face. A galling wave of failure swamped him. He had nothing left. It was over. He had given his best but was simply not yet ready for such demands.
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 20
