Dragon Blood

Chapter 7

“You’ve been given an order,” said the ansai. “Is this task beyond your abilities?”

“No, but Ansai—”

“Don’t argue,” Airo growled, advancing on her. Again the ansai put out an arm, stopping the insufferable man in his tracks.

“She has asserted that she’s able to do it,” he said, staring into her eyes as if searching for weakness. “Let her.”

She refused to give him the satisfaction of finding what he sought. “May I have a blade?”

The ansai drew a dagger from the depths of his robes and offered it to her hilt-first. She grasped the handle with fingers that, for some reason, were trembling. Long moments passed, but she made no move to cut her hair. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she do it?

“What will it be?” he said softly. “Your hair, or your apprenticeship?”

Her past, or her future?

In one swift motion, she grabbed her left ponytail and dragged the blade through her hair above the knotted ribbon that kept it in place. Instantly her head felt unbalanced. The severed tail pooled in a snowy heap on the floor as she replicated the procedure on the other side of her head.

“There,” she said. “Happy?” The sorry remnants of her white mane fluttered limply around her face. She returned the dagger to the ansai and he tucked it away.

“Now you can begin your work with the Xamarai.” He waved his hand, and Rana emerged from the shadows holding a pail of putrid-smelling solution and a mop. “Start by cleaning the corridors in the main hall of the Orai. That’s the building we just left.”

“I—but . . . what?” Keriya spluttered as Rana foisted the bucket and mop on her. “I’m here to learn to use my sword—”

“Chores instill discipline,” said the ansai, “and discipline makes a warrior.”

“Every apprentice is assigned chores,” Hanso added. “We cycle through the studen’ body, making sure everyone pulls their weight and does their share.”

With that, the three men exited onto the training grounds. Keriya noted that Airo’s face was a bit too gleeful for this last statement to be the complete truth.

“You better get going, dear,” Rana advised. “Them floors won’t wash themselves, you know.”

CHAPTER FOUR“Life is a battle that leaves no man unblemished.”

~ Syrionese Military Saying

GONG!

Keriya sat bolt upright on her scratchy pallet. The war horn had sounded. The Fironian troops were marching into battle, the castle was under assault, a shadowy winged monster was rising on the wind . . .

No. Just a nightmare. She wasn’t in Allentria anymore.

Her eyes adjusted to the predawn darkness of her tiny room. Since she couldn’t share space with the boys in the barracks, she’d been squeezed into Rana’s quarters. It was more a wash closet than a room—there was a dingy old sink in one corner, and several mops were stacked in the other.

Keriya flopped back on the sheets, struggling to calm her racing heart, to suppress the misery and nausea. Just a nightmare, just like every night. Nothing out of the ordinary.

GONG!

With a yelp she sprang up again. Standing on tiptoe, she peered through the sole window that graced the closet, a grimy, narrow slat. GONG! She identified the source of the noise—the clock at the top of the Orai’s tower was tolling a wake-up call.

Twice more it rang while men emerged from the barracks across the sandy span from the clothier. Keriya stepped onto the stone floor. After she made sure her covai bandage was in place, she slipped into her apprentice robes. She ran her fingers through her hair, so mournfully short now, and sighed.

“Here we go,” she said, stamping down on her anxiety as she opened the closet door.

Rana was already awake. She offered Keriya a bowl of what appeared to be sludge. “Hello dear. I figured we’d eat here your firs’ day, instead of the dining hall. Have some, you’ll need strength.”

Keriya thanked Rana and knelt on a homemade cushion at the low arudai table. She sampled the concoction. It tasted as bad as it looked. She could only force herself to swallow a few bites before shoving it away.

“One of the lads on duty dropped this off for you,” the old woman added, handing Keriya a folded piece of parchment. “Your training schedule and a map of the grounds.”

“Thanks,” said Keriya, accepting the paper and hurrying to the door. She emerged into a throng of brown-clad boys marching to their classes and opened the parchment Rana had given her.

Her stomach sank. She couldn’t read these runes. Of course she couldn’t—had she expected it to be written in Aerian script? She’d never even properly learned to read Allentrian script. She’d taught herself to translate Allentrian letters once, a lifetime ago, in a faraway place with . . .

No. Don’t think about that. Keriya could not afford distraction. She suspected her fate would depend on how she handled herself today.

“Excuse me,” she began in a tiny voice, reaching for an apprentice tromping by. He either didn’t hear or was ignoring her, and pushed past without sparing her a glance.

She tried again on a younger boy. “Hello—”

“Don’t speak to me, woman!”

Keriya had to admire him—she’d never heard so much scathing hatred thrown into five words before, not even from the Aerian Elders or her childhood nemesis, Penelope Sanvire.

Someone else bumped into her, causing her to stumble. Keriya wheeled to face her aggressor. She’d learned early in life that she must stand up to bullies, even if she couldn’t win against them.

“Watch where you’re going,” she told the stringy, dark-skinned boy who’d hit her.

“Sorry, I’m late to class, and—whoa.” His shiny brown eyes went wide. “You . . . you’re a girl.”

“Yes I am,” she growled, awkwardly crossing her arms as if trying to hide that fact.

“You’re Kayah So’stah. Everyone’s talking abou’ you. You fought the ansai!”

The boy held out his hand. The gesture was a sign of respect and camaraderie in Allentria, but Keriya frowned in suspicion. Was this a trick? Did a handshake mean something different in Jidaeln?

“My name’s Wallis. You must be a powerful warrior if you crossed swords with the ansai and lived to tell the tale.”

Her face relaxed into a vague approximation of a smile. This seemed to be a genuine offer of friendship.

“Keriya.” She accepted his hand and shook it. “But you already knew that.”

“That’s a weird accent. Where are you from?”

Her pulse jumped. “I came here from Pergran.”

“They don’t talk like that in Pergran,” said Wallis, raising a brow.

“It’s a speech impediment,” she muttered, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Huh. Well, I’d stay and talk, but I’m late—and you never want to be late around here.” With a wave, he hurried off again.

“Wait! Could you point me to my first class?”

“Sure. Which one do you have?”

Slowly, she offered her paper to him. “I can’t read.”

“Bad luck,” he said with a rueful smile, scanning the parchment. “Hey, you have Beginner Hand Combat with Sullsai Ithrin—that’s where I’m going!”

He dashed away and Keriya tore after him. Though they sprinted, they’d wasted so much time talking that they arrived after class had begun. Sullsai Ithrin ignored Wallis’s arrival, but zeroed in on Keriya at once.

“You there!” He had cropped gray hair and a broad face that seemed set in a permanent frown. It wasn’t Airo’s frown of hatred—it was a generically grouchy frown, as if everyone he looked at had disappointed him in some way. “Did you think you could show up to class whenever you wanted?”

There was a ripple of movement as boys turned to eye her. Keriya could feel their gazes on the exposed skin of her legs and arms. She’d never been so acutely conscious of her gender before.

“No,” she muttered.

“No, Sullsai Ithrin,” he corrected her in a condescending tone. “You think you won’t have to show proper respec’ for your teachers, either?”

“No, Sullsai Ithrin. I mean—yes, Sullsai . . . I mean, I will show proper respect in the future, Sullsai Ithrin.”

“See tha’ you do. And never come late to my class again. Now, warm-ups. Each of you count off ten jumping jacks. Begin!”

Keriya didn’t know what jumping jacks were—it wasn’t a term she’d encountered in Allentria—but the first boy in the front row began counting, and the class started jumping and swinging their arms in unison.

She followed along well enough at first, but soon her muscles, which were easily fatigued post-accident, were screaming in protest. Her injured side felt like it was splitting in two.

“Kayah, it’s your turn! Count!” A hiss from Wallis snapped her to attention.

“One,” she wheezed. “Two . . . ”

She didn’t care that she sounded weak and winded. All she wanted was to get through the jumping jacks.

“Ten,” she finished, dropping her arms and doubling over. A yellow-red stain had bloomed on her robes above the covai leaf bandage. Her wound was leaking.

“Push-ups,” Ithrin barked.

The boys knelt on the sandy ground. Keriya followed, glad that they were getting a respite. The rest of the class put their hands beneath them and pushed their bodies up from the ground. At first she didn’t think the push-ups were so bad. Then a shadow fell on her.

“Back straight,” came Ithrin’s voice. “Like there’s a plank tied to you. Hands under your shoulders, chin to the ground!”

A heavy weight pressed against her spine. Ithrin had stepped on her—actually stepped on her—to force her to keep her body straight. At once, the push-ups became impossibly hard.

“Ow! Get off,” she choked.

“Wha’ did you say to me?” Ithrin’s thunderous roar rang in her ears. “Begin again. Every time you refuse to do them correctly, we’ll start over. One.”

Keriya tried to force her body up, but her arms buckled and she landed in the dirt. A puff of reddish dust rose around her. She inhaled some and coughed.

“ONE,” Ithrin bellowed, eliciting groans from the rest of the class. “Get up, apprentice!”

“Can’t . . .” Keriya gasped, trying to wriggle out from under his foot.

“There is no such word in the vocabulary of the Xamarai. Can’t is a word for failures.”

Feeling like she wanted to cry, but knowing it would be worse if she did, Keriya struggled to continue with the push-ups.

“When you think you’re unable to do one more push-up, you do ten more,” Ithrin intoned, turning to pace among the apprentices. “When you’re done for the day, remember someone else is training long into the night. When you want to give up, think of everything you’re giving up on—your country, your family, yourself!”

A single tear did escape Keriya’s eye then, but it wasn’t a tear of despair. Ithrin’s words had struck a chord deep within her.

“Stand,” Ithrin cried. Keriya stood. “Pair off and begin sparring exercises. Sairo Exchange first.”

“It’s like they’re speaking in code,” she grumbled. She turned to see if Wallis wanted to work with her, but he’d already found a partner. Keriya was the odd man out—did this mean she was exempt from the exercise? Maybe she could stand to the side and observe the exercise before trying it.

No such luck. Ithrin returned to her and raised his fists. She stared dumbly at him.

“Traditionally you prepare for a battle when one presents itself,” he scolded. “Assume a fighting stance.”

Keriya didn’t know their fighting stances, but she suspected saying as much wouldn’t go over well. Instead she did her best to mirror how he stood.

“Bow to your adversary, as this is the honorable thing to do,” he told her.

She bobbed an awkward bow; Ithrin did not return it.