by Heath Pfaff
Strangely I found myself with the staff weapon I’d been considering taking on that first day of weapon’s training. I was the only one who ended up with a benign looking weapon. Zarkov ended up with a haladie, a strange double bladed weapon that had curved blades on both ends and a center piece with a spiked knuckle guard. He was incredibly displeased about it, but a lot of people were displeased with what they ended up with. At least they didn’t end up with a stick. Though technically my weapon was two sticks. The staff split in the middle with a clever latching system so that it could be wielded like two swords with no edge. This was a far stretch from the axes I’d dreamed of using. They were faster, and almost ridiculously light by comparison. They also took a degree of finesse that my axe training hadn’t prepared me for.
Luckily we were far too busy for Kiiava to take her hate out on me over the following few weeks. Her interruptions in my life were annoying, and they sometimes cost me some discomfort or embarrassment, but I thought I was doing well anyway. It was amazing how far I’d come in such a short time. I was so much stronger than I had been before. I could run further, climb faster, and handle myself with much more poise and dexterity.
I would have been even more impressed with myself, but Zarkov had improved at an even more impressive pace than I had. He was strong and capable, quickly getting very muscular and somehow more attractive. I hadn’t anticipated a strong physical attraction to him, but as we trained more and more, and I spent more nights laying beside him in bed, it was becoming clear to me that I did find him quite appealing. He could be funny, and he was surprisingly positive most of the time. Sleeping next to him every night certainly didn’t make things any less awkward. I considered bringing the subject up with Ori again, but upon trying she glared at me until I gave up on trying to speak with her.
It did help, of course, that he had no interest in me at all. The fact that we’d both be executed if we tried to enjoy each other was also great incentive not to even touch at night most of the time. There were some particularly rough nights where we stayed close together, and for me those night’s involved a good deal of sexual tension, but there was still nothing beyond the momentary closeness. We’d never kissed. We never even spoke of such matters. It was better that way. Neither of us needed the distraction. Besides, sleep was too important to lose for the sake of physical release.
We woke to another Firstday and set about getting ready to head out for our classes. Zarkov and I were running early, ahead of the rest of the pack as we often were. It was easy to wake up early when you shared a small bed and disturbed each other quite easily. We probably got less sleep than many of the other students, but we tried not to let it interfere with our performance. Perhaps it was even an edge for us.
We left the dining hall and headed for the classrooms, but on our way there a man in Warden’s gear stopped us in the hall. He wasn’t someone I recognized, but no one wore one of those outfits if they didn’t belong to the order so we stopped immediately when he raised his hand.
“Sir, are we in trouble?” I asked, confused by what was happening.
“No more than any of the others. It’s your first Trial day. Is this your team?” He asked, looking between us.
We both nodded. I remembered Ori speaking of Trials, and that they were late getting around to them this year, but this was the first anyone besides her had spoken of them.
“Good, go to the Rift door and tell the Warden there that you’re group Axion One.” He said, not explaining any of what that meant.
“Axion One? What does that mean?” Zarkov asked, always one to question things before he thought through the intelligence of doing so.
The man smiled which was a somewhat troubling expression on his pale face. I noted that he had similar black streaks beneath his skin to Ghoul. In a way it looked like his veins were pumping black blood and I was seeing it through the top layer of his skin.
“It’s your team’s first Trial, boy. Now get moving, and don’t ask so many questions of the Warden’s. Some of us would crush you for it.” He said, waving us by, eyes moving to another group coming up behind us.
I grabbed Zarkov by the arm before he could speak again and dragged him down the hall. “Must you always talk back to everyone?” I asked him in an exasperated tone.
He laughed. “Yes! How else would I find anything out? You have to ask questions to learn.”
“Yes, but when a Warden gives you an order, you just do it.” I told him sternly.
He was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “You should never do anything blindly, Lil. It’s dangerous to jump into things unprepared. We are here to learn the strength of Will. Do you think someone with a strong Will does whatever is asked of them no matter what?”
I opened my mouth to reply and tell him that was exactly what we were here to learn, but then I thought about it again and closed my mouth. I grumbled a bit. “I still don’t think it’s wise to talk back to the Wardens. Maybe they are trying to teach us to be strong Willed, but not when it comes to what they want from us. They’re dangerous.”
“Everything here is dangerous.” Zark answered as we rounded the final corner to the Rift. There was another Warden at the gate, another we didn’t know. She was standing close to the doors, a small black book open in one hand. There were weapons piled all around the gate entrance and I recognized my staff immediately. It was the only long stick there, though there was a single spear as well. At least that one had a point.
The woman’s eyes flashed to us as we approached. They were mostly white with just black dots in the center. Her skin was a flawless pale color as well, none of the black streaks many of the others had.
“This is your full team?” She asked.
I nodded, but Zarkov had to speak, as was his way. “This is all we need.” He said confidently.
“You were given a group designation?” She went on, ignoring Zarkov.
“Yes, Axion One, Ma’am.” I answered quickly.
“Pick up your weapons and one of the packs.” She gestured towards a group of packs laying on the floor. They looked large and heavy.
As we went to gather the things we’d been told to take, she continued talking. “You will go through the door I open and proceed out until you reach an area of low grass. There you will set camp and wait for dusk. You are to arrive back at the entrance point just as the sun touches the horizon, not a moment sooner, and not a moment later. Do not go into the forest for any reason. Do you understand?”
I nodded quickly, confused by the orders, and uncertain what was happening, but doing my best to make sense of it all.
“So we’re just going camping?” Zarkov asked.
Her eyes narrowed angrily and Zarkov slammed to the ground on his knees and the air reverberated with waves of Will. No one ever commented when the Wardens flexed their muscle, and I thought that strange. It was an unmistakable feeling, and not a pleasant one. “I’ve told you what is happening. Do as you’re instructed.” She said, and then she turned to the large double doors and pushed open a smaller, nearly invisible panel on the side of one of the doors. This panel was a smaller door inside the larger frame, and one I’d never noticed before. As soon as it opened the scent of wildflowers wafted through the gap. “Go.”
Another group was approaching from behind us. Five people walking together. They had a big group, but we didn’t have time to take notice as we filed through the door and out into a densely overgrown area. The door shut behind us, and when we turned back it was gone. We were somewhere out in the wilderness.
“Well, I guess we go forward.” I said, trying to get a grasp of the change of scenery. The season felt wrong. I was fairly certain that it was closer to fall outside of the academy, and this place definitely felt like it was in summer. The air was sticky and warm.
Zarkov was breathing deeply and still looking around, his eyes alight with pleasure. “We’re so free. I haven’t felt this free since before . . . all of this mess.”
I laughed a little. We did feel shockingly free in that moment. The sky stretched out in every direction, broken by no walls that I could make out. There wasn’t even a building or fence within our line of sight. We began walking, and it was like the school didn’t exist. I wondered how far we could go. A large part of me wanted to just keep going forever. There were allegedly bounds to the places that the doors opened onto, but it was hard to imagine that as we walked on and on for nearly a half an hour before we reached an area of low grass. Ahead of us was a thick forest, the trees so dense that the world beneath them fell into deep shadows. It was ominous.
“Maybe we should just keep going.” Zarkov said quietly as I was setting down the pack of supplies we’d been given.
“What?” I asked, surprised he’d suggest something like that.
“They can’t possibly be keeping track of us. This could be our chance. We could just leave, go and hide somewhere and they’d never find us. We could be free.” He said, his expression far more serious than it normally was.
I wanted to believe he was right. In that moment it felt like it might be true. When I looked at him I didn’t even see the skull on his face anymore. We could just run away and hide in the wilderness. Together. Just the two of us. Maybe he’d even get over how ugly I was and we could be together.
Zarkov took my hand then, which shocked me so much that I froze in place.
“Lil, it would be just us. We wouldn’t need to go back into a city ever. We could live together out in the country.” He came a little closer, and I was suddenly very aware that his eyes were intently on my own. His body was so near that I could feel his warmth, like I often did at night.
A shadow flew overhead, circling us, and we both looked up. The golem circled a few more times and then flew away and my heart fell, and Zarkov released my hand, his expression grim, then sad. “Just playing.” He said, the words hollow on his lips. He turned and gave me a half smile that didn’t touch his glassy eyes. “You’re too ugly for me anyway.”
“I know I am.” I replied, and a tear slipped down my face, a salty wet line of betrayal tracing down to my lips.
His hand came up for a moment like he might wipe it away, and I saw a depth of concern behind his eyes that I’d never thought to see there, but then he turned away. He couldn’t reach out to me. We couldn’t get closer. A part of me ached inside. My heart felt leaden. He did care about me. He did want me. I wasn’t really ugly to him, but none of it mattered. We couldn’t get any closer. Being together meant death, and even if we could pretend we were free for a bit, we weren’t.
I forced myself to focus on opening the pack we’d been given and pulling things out of it. A few more tears escaped my eyes, but I pulled myself sharply back under control. Life was as it was. I would make the best of it. We had to survive, and that meant being stronger than anyone that had come before. Zarkov and I could do it, and we would come out of this together. Once we were full Wardens we could do what we wanted. That was a goal I could keep in my heart, something to fight for.
3.3
The pack contained a few medical supplies, clean bandages, thread, alcohol for treating wounds, salve, dry meat rations and tack bread. There was rope and a grappling hook, as well as a few other climbing supplies and some fire making gear as well. I took these out and set about making a small fire with wood that Zark had been gathering from the immediate area without entering the woods. We’d been told not to, and it was pretty clear that we were being watched. I had no desire to bring wrath down upon us.
The day progressed quietly and we even managed to ignore, for a time, the fact that none of this was real. We didn’t discuss anything that had happened when we’d first arrived at the camp. It didn’t come up again, and I knew, in my heart, it would never be discussed again. We couldn’t afford such conversations. It was like it had never happened, and before long I wondered if it was some fragment of my imagination that had gone off on a flight of fancy inspired by the illusion of peace surrounding us.
I kept expecting something to happen, but the day was quiet. It was the most relaxing thing that had happened to me since we’d arrived at the academy and I was beginning to wonder if we hadn’t been given a day off to relax and enjoy ourselves, but as the night drew closer and the sun began to fall towards the horizon the woods began to watch us back.
It was always darker beneath the canopy, and by the time the sun was low in the sky, it had settled to pitch black beneath the trees, and that was when the small silvery eyes began to appear in the darkness, occasionally reflecting light from the sky and not hinting at what lay behind those eyes. It was clear that whatever was in there was focused on us, and there were a lot of them.
“We should head for the door out.” Zarkov said as the sun got lower in the sky. “We don’t want to be late. We’ll arrive about on time if we get going now.”
I nodded my agreement and packed the last few items back into the pack before picking up my weapon. The pole was metal, far heavier than it looked and it fit very comfortably in my hand. It was about the same height that I was and worked great as a walking stick. I could fit it on my back in one or two pieces, though it fit better as two. I’d been learning to fight with it for a few days now and it did feel much better than the axes had, even if it took a different set of skills to use.
Each end was weighted, though they didn’t appear to bulge at all. The weight at the two ends allowed it to swing and spin quickly, momentum shifting from one side to the other on a pendulum, and when separated into two halves the weighted portions were kept at the far end away from the hand to allow for a more solid strike. I’d been told that I shouldn't consider the staff a non-lethal weapon. When used correctly those weighted ends could easily deliver a killing blow, and if I mastered my Will, my staff would be far more dangerous than a sword. I wasn’t sure about any of that, but, again, it did make a great walking stick.
We made our way back toward the door, and with a little bit of jogging, came into view of the portal at the exact moment we were supposed to, but when we got there the door hadn’t returned to where it had first vanished. There was, however, a letter on the ground. It had a bright red seal that seemed to glow in the last rays of the day. Zarkov and I looked back and forth between each other before I finally bent down and picked it up. It had the crest of the Wardens upon it, a fist clenching the eternal fire.
I broke the seal and opened it. I read it aloud for both of us.
Students of Will,
Deep in the forest sleeps an ancient temple. At the heart of the temple is a watcher’s stone. Go and retrieve the stone and bring it back to this door. The stone must be carried by hand. The creatures of the forest will try to stop you. You may use your weapons to defeat them. There are two other teams of students also after the stone. Only one team will claim it. Those who fail will spend the next week in the Rift. You may not use your weapons on other students. If one of your teammates dies, you will bring the body back to the door or you will not return to the door. If you are caught using your weapon against other students you will be risking banishment from the school. We are watching.
“So much for the vacation.” Zarkov replied dryly. “I should have known there was more to this.”
I found myself scanning the horizon. If there were two other teams, and we’d all been given a pack, then it was likely that the others had started a fire as well. Unfortunately it was too dark now to see anything, and I hadn’t been paying attention while there was light out. We had no way of knowing exactly how far away the other teams were.
“We better get moving.” I said. “These games are never fair, and we don’t know where the other teams are in relation to our goal. I don’t want to spend the next week in the Rift.” I’d just finished my last penance in the Rift, and wasn’t eager to go back.
“I‘m not sure whether or not it’s better to run Rift for a week or face those things out there in the woods. There were a lot of them, and I didn’t like the way they were watc
hing us.” Zarkov said. “Also, that part about carrying our dead back to the door makes me uncomfortable. Clearly they expect some of us to die.”
“So you think we should just wait here and take whatever punishment they decide to give us? If they catch us not participating we could be thrown from the school, and you know what the punishment is for that, Zark.” I reminded him, already moving in the direction we needed to go. He was following after, whether he liked the idea or not.
He chuckled dryly. “No, I know we have to do this. I just wanted to make sure that I’d voiced a protest so later, when I’m dragging you half dead back to the door, I can remind you that I didn’t want to do this and it was entirely your idea.”
“That’s more like what I expected from you, pushing the responsibility off on everyone else and sailing through as easily as possible.” I shot him a grin over my shoulder. “That’s what I like about you, Zark, you’re reliably unreliable.”
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I? I’d say that makes me at least fifty percent reliable.” His sarcastic reply earned him an honest smile.
Our light chatter got a bit quieter as we drew near the forest again. It was dark out. Incredibly dark. Either there was no moon wherever we were, or else we’d gotten unlucky and it was the night of a new moon because there was nothing in the sky but the stars, and they only offered so much guidance in the depth of darkness that clung to us. Of course, beneath the trees it was even darker. The eyes were gone now, and with the sun all the way down it was almost entirely black within the forest.
I grabbed the pack from my back and reached inside until I found some rope. I took that and soaked a length of it in some of the potent alcohol in the medical kit and then I wrapped it around a fallen piece of wood several times before tying it off. A moment with some flint and tinder and we had a torch. I didn’t want to use anymore of our rope in case we needed it so we’d have to share.
