Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily scowled. Dragon’s Blood was one of the most terrifyingly magical substances in the world – and pricy too, even for a baroness. And dragons didn’t like being hunted, though it often took them some time to notice. She’d read stories of villages being attacked years after the hunters had been and gone. But then, everyone agreed that dragons were truly alien. As far as she knew, only she and Void had talked to a dragon in recent years.

  She asked Lady Barb about the dishcloth-creatures, but Lady Barb couldn’t identify them from her description and suggested she wrote down the details for Mistress Kirdáne. Emily found her notebook and wrote down everything she remembered, then replaced the security spells and returned it to her bag. It was temping to think that the creatures would be named after her...assuming, of course, they hadn’t already been discovered. There were more things in the woods than held in Whitehall’s zoo.

  “Make sure you get some sleep,” Lady Barb ordered, as she lay back down on her blanket. “We’ll have to walk fast tomorrow – and find a place for some practice. And a swim.”

  “If you’re up to it,” Emily said, firmly. “We can stay here for another day or two if necessary.”

  “I’d prefer to avoid it,” Lady Barb said. “And I think you’d get bored.”

  Emily blushed, embarrassed. Was she really that easy to read?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  DESPITE EMILY’S CONCERNS, THEY LEFT THE campsite the following morning, walking up a long rocky pathway that eventually led them to a gorgeous, spring-fed lake nestled within a rich, green valley. There was no sign of any other humans, apart from an abandoned hut that seemed to have been deserted for years. She couldn’t help wondering if there was a danger here they couldn’t see, like the Night Walker. But nothing suggested itself as she perched on a rock and watched as Lady Barb undressed and plunged into the cold water.

  “Come on in,” she called, as her head broke the surface. “The water’s fine.”

  Emily shook her head. Even if the water hadn’t been freezing cold – she’d dipped her fingers into the lake, once she’d checked for unpleasant surprises – she wouldn’t have felt comfortable undressing and skinny-dipping. Some of the boys did it on camping trips with the sergeants, but Emily had never felt the urge to join them. Some of their invitations had been downright rude and unwelcome.

  She took some water and boiled it as Lady Barb swam effortlessly from one side of the lake to the other. It was impossible to tell that she’d been ill, not considering the speed she was moving; Emily couldn’t help feeling a little admiration. She’d learned how to swim at Whitehall, between Alassa and Sergeant Miles, but she wasn’t a very strong swimmer. Lady Barb, on the other hand, tore her way through the water like a rocket.

  By the time she emerged from the water – Emily couldn’t help thinking of the very first James Bond movie – there was boiling water ready to make Kava.

  Emily looked away as Lady Barb dried and dressed, then washed half of her clothing in the lake. It wasn’t ideal, Emily suspected, but they couldn’t do anything else until they reached the next town, where they could hire someone to wash their clothes. The last time she’d washed something herself, it had shrunk so badly she’d had to use magic to fix it.

  “You can take a dip now, if you like,” Lady Barb urged. She tied her hair back in a bun, then took the mug Emily offered her. “The water isn’t that bad.”

  Emily shook her head, firmly.

  Lady Barb smiled, then drank her Kava. “I understand,” she said. “What did you do while I was...unwell?”

  “Pocket dimensions,” Emily said. She outlined her practice, confessing that the dimension never lasted very long without the square. “I just can’t get it to work right.”

  “You need practice,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “But I was thinking we would practice something else today.”

  Emily looked up, interested. She loved learning new types of magic and mental disciplines, even though the more she learned, the more she had to work to keep them all straight in her mind. She’d been told that the different schools of magic were linked together, but she’d also been warned not to think about it until Fifth Year.

  “You know how to evade someone, of course,” Lady Barb said. “I want you to evade me.”

  Emily hesitated. Lady Barb had almost choked to death the previous night. Even if she didn’t remember, Emily did. Asking might get her head bitten off – or worse – but she couldn’t just follow orders, not now.

  “Are you really well enough to chase me?”

  “Yes,” Lady Barb said. Her eyes were flinty hard, but her tone was even. “You don’t always get to be at your best when you have to fight. Now...do as I tell you.”

  Emily swallowed. She’d never been that good at evading her fellow students, particularly the ones who had grown up in the countryside. Sergeant Miles was an absolute devil at tracking down his students, to the point where some whispered he’d cheated. And then he’d proved he’d used no magic at all.

  “All right,” she said, after a moment. “How long should I try and stay ahead of you?”

  “At least thirty minutes,” Lady Barb said, after a moment’s thought. “Same rules as Martial Magic. If I catch you before time runs out, you will do a push-up for each minute left.”

  “Incentive,” Emily said, mimicking Sergeant Miles. He’d done the same, only less mercifully. On the other hand, it was great for building up upper body strength. “Is that the only thing we will be practicing?”

  “No,” Lady Barb said. She glanced up at the sun, then smiled at Emily. “But the next thing can wait until I catch you.”

  She put out the fire, then packed up the bags and swung them both over her shoulder. Emily smiled, although she knew that the older woman wasn’t really hampering herself too much. It wouldn’t give Emily much of an advantage. She stood, then turned and ran down the path into the woods. Once hidden by the trees, she slowed and moved off the path, watching where she put her feet. There were fewer rocks under the trees, forcing her to walk carefully, but at least she wouldn’t be leaving footprints behind her. Bracing herself, she kept moving, wondering how long she had to hide. Outrunning Lady Barb probably wasn’t an option.

  Finding a large tree, she scrambled up it into the branches, marvelling at just how many skills she’d picked up over the previous two years. She’d certainly never climbed a tree before in her life. But there was no time to reflect. She heard the sound of someone crashing through the forest and held herself as still as possible. It wasn’t good enough.

  “Five minutes to track you down,” Lady Barb called from below. “That was pathetic.”

  Emily held herself very still. It was just possible that Lady Barb was bluffing...

  The tree shook violently and she yelped, then scrambled off the branch as quickly as possible. Lady Barb smirked as Emily dropped down to the ground.

  Emily scowled at the older woman. She couldn’t have caught her so fast unless...a quick check revealed that Lady Barb had sneaked a tracking hex onto her clothes, before she ran into the forest. If she’d thought to look, she could have removed it before hiding.

  “Cheat,” she said, with some feeling.

  “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying,” Lady Barb said. Her smirk grew wider. “I believe that’s twenty-five push-ups.”

  Emily groaned, but dropped to the ground and started to count them off, one by one. At least she was better at it now, thankfully. The first time Sergeant Harkin had made her do them, she’d had aching arms for hours afterwards, until Jade had helped her find a potion that made her feel better. Lady Barb watched until she had finished, then helped Emily to her feet.

  “You should have looked for the hex,” Lady Barb said. Emily glowered at her. “Ready to try again?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. She paused, wondering if she dared push her luck. “Will you do push-ups if you don’t catch me?”

  “Depends,” Lady Barb said. She turned around, looking back
towards the lake. “We’ll see how well you do.”

  Emily turned and fled into the trees, changing her path as soon as she removed the tracking hex. After a moment, she stuck another one on a tree, half-hoping that it would distract the older woman long enough for Emily to put some distance between them. She didn’t know how long Lady Barb would wait before she started to come after her, after all. This time, she crouched low behind a tree and hid herself behind a glamor. Without magic, Lady Barb would have to look very carefully for her if she wanted to succeed.

  She jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder. “You did too well,” Lady Barb said, mischievously. “Your glamor was too good. It just looked unreal when I saw it.”

  Emily glanced at her watch. Lady Barb had taken twenty-two minutes to find her. Sighing, she dropped to the ground and counted out eight more push-ups, then stood up.

  Lady Barb shrugged, waggling her fingers at Emily. Taken by surprise, Emily froze. It took her several minutes to break the spell and escape.

  “Work faster, next time,” Lady Barb said, as she turned to lead Emily back to the path. “You could be easily killed while you are helpless.”

  “I know,” Emily confessed. She needed to move her hands to work magic, mostly. It was harder, somehow, to cast spells without moving. She’d worked hard, with Mistress Sun and Sergeant Miles, to master the art, but she was still only a beginner. “But it doesn’t always work properly.”

  Lady Barb made a rude sound as they reached the path and started onwards. “Just you wait until you find a proper apprenticeship,” she said, darkly. “Your mistress or master won’t be so kind.”

  Emily remembered some of Jade’s stories and nodded in agreement. Master Grey, whatever his faults, pushed his apprentice really hard. Jade could cope, Emily suspected, but he hadn’t had the benefit of a second year of Martial Magic. Master Grey was pushing him right to the limits, as well as teaching him to be a duelist. The thought reminded her of something she wanted to ask.

  “Why didn’t you take part in the dueling contest?”

  Lady Barb seemed surprised by the question. “I did, when I was younger,” she said. “And then I lost my ranking and decided I could bow out gracefully. I preferred to fight, rather than duel.”

  She smiled. “It wasn’t something I really wanted to keep,” she added. “Dueling isn’t something that should be done casually.”

  “I see,” Emily said.

  “Master Grey holds the topmost ranking at present,” Lady Barb said. “This is who you were talking about, isn’t it?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Clasp your hands behind your back,” Lady Barb ordered. Emily opened her mouth to ask why, but Lady Barb went on before she could say a word. “To answer the question most girls ask, he can’t decline challenges without forfeiting his ranking. So he insists that all challenges be to the death, just to keep them down.”

  “Men,” Emily said.

  “Indeed,” Lady Barb agreed. She smiled, rather dryly. “Unclasp your hands.”

  Emily tried...and discovered that her hands were stuck, bound by a spell. “You have twenty minutes to break the spell,” Lady Barb said as she walked away. “And don’t even think about standing still.”

  “Cruel,” Emily muttered, as she followed her mentor. She struggled, but her hands refused to unlock. “Why...?”

  “Because you need the practice,” Lady Barb said, in a surprisingly reasonable tone. “And believe me, you have to learn how to defeat these spells before it’s too late.”

  There was something in her tone that bothered Emily, a suggestion she might need to learn fast – or faster. She cast the canceling charm, but wasn’t too surprised to discover that the charm failed. Lady Barb wouldn’t have trapped her hands with something simple and easy to break. Gritting her teeth, she tried a more complex charm, then another. Neither one worked.

  She trailed along behind Lady Barb, struggling with the hex. It was odd; the touch was so light that she couldn’t sense the magic, merely the effects. She should have been able to sense something, certainly after two years of advanced study with Mistress Sun and Sergeant Miles. But there was nothing...

  It clicked and she glared at the older woman’s back. There was nothing, at least nothing on her hands. The spell had affected her mind, forcing her to keep her hands locked no matter what she tried. Once she knew what it was, it was easy to counter. Emily freed her hands, rubbing them frantically. She’d gripped them so tightly that her skin, already pale, had gone white.

  “You took far too long to realize how the trick was done,” Lady Barb told her, without turning around. “That may be a problem, later.”

  Emily nodded, sullenly. There were spells she disliked intensely and almost all of them related to ways of rendering someone helpless – and open to outside commands or influence. Quite a few of the traps in Blackhall manipulated the target’s mind, either inserting commands or merely messing around with their perceptions. Emily’s standard tactic was to avoid them where possible. They were just too tricky to overpower.

  Lady Barb kept tossing tests at her as they walked, each one slightly more complex and twisted than the last. Emily fought down her outrage and concentrated, but most of the tests required careful thought to defeat, though they were designed to make thinking difficult. It was worse than trying to study while someone was playing music, she decided, remembering days at school when she’d studied there, rather than go home and risk meeting her stepfather. Her mind was all she had and it could be twisted so easily...

  “Set up the wards,” Lady Barb ordered. “And make sure you get plenty of sleep.”

  Emily eyed her suspiciously. “Are you...are you going to do anything tonight?”

  “Sleep,” Lady Barb said, innocently. “Or should I be setting you punishment exercises?”

  “No,” Emily said, quickly. “But...”

  Lady Barb’s expression softened. “It wasn’t very easy for me either,” she admitted. “But you have far better cause than I to learn how to resist mental attacks.”

  Emily shivered, remembering Lin – and how the bodies had almost been wiped from her mind.

  Lady Barb went back into the forest and returned, carrying a pair of rabbits and a handful of vegetables. Emily watched in some amusement as she dropped water into the cauldron, then boiled the meat and half of the vegetables until she’d made a tasty stew. The sergeants had done the same, she recalled, only with larger animals. But then, they’d had more mouths to feed.

  “Your training has been enhanced, but you have a long way to go,” Lady Barb said. “Still...”

  Her voice trailed off. Emily looked at her, sharply. The older woman almost seemed to be hinting at something. But what? She braced herself and asked.

  “I can’t tell you, not now,” Lady Barb said. “But it is important that you concentrate on all of your defenses, not just the physical ones. You will need them.”

  Emily ate her stew, then fell asleep almost at once. Nothing troubled the wards – or at least nothing woke her in the middle of the night. When she awoke, it was morning and Lady Barb was already awake. Emily felt a tight knot undoing itself in her stomach, one she hadn’t realized was there. Lady Barb was back to normal.

  “I didn’t see anything last night,” Lady Barb said. “We might have slept in the wrong place.”

  Emily shrugged as she washed her face, then drank the Kava. For once, Lady Barb had prepared breakfast, such as it was. The reheated stew tasted a little gamy, but she gulped it down anyway. Lady Barb packed up, passing Emily her bag. Emily sighed and took it.

  “We’re going to pause overnight in a town on the edge of Easter,” Lady Barb informed her, once she’d pulled the bag over her shoulders. “We should have some time to get information out of the locals before we go visit Lady Easter.”

  Emily nodded. The Sergeants had taught her the value of intelligence, although they’d also added that most people didn’t know anything outside their own limited experiences. It
was rare to find a lower-class tourist in the Allied Lands, apart from magicians and traders. Even the upper classes didn’t travel very far from their homelands. Of course, that might change once the steam railways were finally in place.

  Lady Barb kept testing her as they made their way along the path, heading down towards the nearest town. Emily sighed and concentrated on breaking the spells, one after another. Several of them caught her so firmly she couldn’t escape, forcing Lady Barb to free her, before teaching her how to escape and then casting the spell again. The second time that happened, Emily discovered that even the smallest change in the spell made it harder for her to escape. Her head was pounding uncomfortably when Lady Barb finally called a halt.

  “You will need to keep practicing,” Lady Barb warned. “But the true danger lies in subtle magic. We may need to carve a rune into your flesh.”

  Emily glowered at her, rubbing her forehead. Carving runes into one’s flesh could be dangerous, even if it worked perfectly. There was no way someone else could do it and expect it to work; she’d have to carve the rune herself, without benefit of anaesthetic. And she wasn’t even sure why.

  “Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t be missed,” Lady Barb added.

  “Missed,” Emily repeated. “Missed by whom?”

  Lady Barb said nothing. Emily was about to ask again, demanding answers, when the pathway suddenly widened and revealed a tiny village hidden within the trees. It looked alarmingly like the first village, save that it was organized differently and large carved stones had been placed in front of each of the shacks. A handful of people were moving from house to house, but something was missing. It took her a moment to realize that there were no children in sight.

  Someone sounded an alarm and the women scurried into the nearest house, while the men produced a handful of makeshift weapons. Emily tensed, preparing a spell, as two men started towards them, their expressions frozen somewhere between grim determination and fear. But then, she wouldn’t have cared to face a sorceress either, not if she didn’t have any magic of her own.