by Amanda Twigg
She careened along the accommodation corridor, rounded the corner at speed, and bumped into a Tally Hall soldier who stood beyond the bend. The willowy man’s tally slates cracked to the floor, and an annoyed flash emblazoned his aura.
“Sorry, sir.” Landra bent to gather the pieces. She thrust the fragments into the soldier’s hands, gave a fast salute, and then darted away before he could demand an explanation.
“Demerit, Citizen Hux,” a scratchy voice yelled from behind.
Why does everyone know my name? Shelk.
Her undignified flight attracted more stares. She spotted the Warrior’s dark curls disappearing through the main exit, and approached the checkpoint as if on a battlefield charge.
“Accompanying Warrior Fourth Thisk,” she barked at the guard.
She recognized the two-bar soldier from his relaxed frame and passive features, but his flickering aura glowed with rampant curiosity.
“Departure of Citizen Landra Hux,” he shouted as he unbarred the door.
“Shush, Hesson! I don’t want everyone knowing my business.”
She charged through the exit wanting to explain, but there was no time. Her dramatic departure would make the evening’s gossip over a jug of scute, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that, so the worry faded from her thoughts.
She emerged into the clamor of base activity and spotted Thisk’s bulky frame in the narrow corridor. He plunged into the throng of soldiers on the main thoroughfare without a backward glance, so she scrambled after him like a flustered attendant. Shift change had brought an unusual number of soldiers into the ring sixty-two corridor, and melded blue auras reached from floor to ceiling. After a steadying breath, she slipped into the stream of marching soldiers and looked for her tutor.
Where are you, Thisk?
Bobbing, dark curls amongst the mass of shaven heads helped her locate the Warrior. His mottled cloak clashed with the throng of blue uniforms, helping her to track his route. She tried catching up, but his stiff march was hard to match. Soldiers moved aside to create a gap for his passage, only to close ranks behind him and block her way. One offered Thisk a passing salute, and he gave an official nod of recognition without pausing.
Landra zigzagged through disgruntled soldiers wondering if this was what Father had intended. He usually forbade her from roaming the city unsupervised, so she wasn’t certain whether to feel adrift or liberated. The Warrior’s dark silhouette against the main concourse glow made her slow. She caught up to find him leaning against a wall. He cocked his head toward a door outline in the wooden grain, scowling as if she’d lost a championship race.
“We’re going through here,” he said.
The camouflaged door matched one she passed every day in Hux Hall. Her home’s unused entrance barely warranted recognition anymore, but this door grabbed all of her attention.
Outside. It really goes outside.
Thisk pressed a gloved hand to a subtle mark on the wall, and a panel swung away. Landra sucked in a breath as a leak of cold air nipped at her cheeks and inky darkness chilled her Soul. The Warrior crossed the threshold with calm indifference, and blackness swallowed him. Heart thumping with determination, she gave herself up to the gloom. Coldness enveloped her form, immediately penetrating her jacket to raise the hairs on her arms.
Why didn’t I ask you more about this history lesson? Why didn’t you tell me more?
Her uniform could have coped with dips in the library heating system, but it couldn’t hold back this chill. Folding her arms across her chest for warmth, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Small dots of emergency light knots came into focus, and Thisk’s aura shifted about the small space like he were an underlevel ghost.
“Best move before you freeze,” he said. “You’ll find extra clothes at the back of the shaft.”
Landra checked her bearings. A tree trunk grew through the shaft’s center, and her gaze slid down the wrinkled bark to where it disappeared through the floor. Her shuffling feet moved dried leaves from the base, and she saw cracked bulges in the flooring planks where the trunk’s girth exceeded its allotted hole.
Old. She placed a hand on the bark. Is this your history, Thisk?
“Get a move on,” the Warrior said.
She shuffled around the trunk until the rear wall came into view. A ladder stretched from floor to ceiling, nestled between a rack of weapons and shelves of folded clothes.
Overlevel’s up there,” Thisk said. “It’s exposed to the world, so it’s colder than the devil’s mist. We all live inside the midlevel, like a soldier sandwich, and the underlevel’s below.” He stamped his boot heel on the floor next to the ladder.
Landra didn’t have time for this. She’d learned city construction with Trainer Grimwas, and her uncontrollable shivering was more urgent. She went straight to the clothing stacks and yanked a jacket free. In one fluid movement, she donned the baggy garment over her uniform and sighed as mist-blessed warmth silenced her clacking teeth. Tension eased from her body and she rolled her shoulders, stretching against pain the cold had awakened.
Thisk lurked a few strides away, his dark eyes lost in the murky light, but the weight of his judgment settled on her like he was a council judge.
“Why leave these clothes here?” she asked.
“If you’d spent more time in the junior barracks, you’d know.”
Another dig.
“I’m not responsible for my upbringing. “My mother died when I was four. I’m sure Chief Hux did what he thought was best.”
“I’m not criticizing the chief.” Thisk rammed a hat on her head and let the flaps fall over her neck and ears. “I’m stating a fact. These shafts are evacuation routes, so most soldiers practice escape drills through here. The supplies are lifesavers for anyone heading out in a hurry.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“No reason you should. You have guards assigned to escort you out if there’s trouble, and they do enough drills for everyone.”
She mulled over that concept, never having realized how her existence differed from that of other soldiers. Thisk made Winton’s tough training sound like pampering. She yanked down a heavy blue cloak with a fleecy lining, wondering if the Warrior would object to its dark blue hue. He ignored her to sort through a bulging rack of weapons, so she swung it around her shoulders, feeling its heavy weight settle on her back and its hem swish against her calves.
“Couldn’t we have left through the Hux Hall shaft?” she asked, poking her hands through convenient holes to fasten the cloak buckles.
Thisk sighed. “Do you always ask this many questions?”
“I… you’re my tutor now. I thought—”
“Fine! Hux Hall’s shaft serves fewer soldiers, so it’s not as well stocked. And the sentry is impossible to stand down. Those guards are drilled to stay at post come fire or flood. I figured you didn’t want everyone knowing your business, and the lad on this exit was happy to take a break.”
Landra suspected a quiet exit through the Hux Hall door would have raised less commotion than her chase down its corridors, but it wasn’t her place to comment. She stomped her feet into warmer boots without a word. Thisk settled a bow and quiver on his back and swung a bulging sack over one shoulder.
“Wh—” She stemmed the question and craned her neck as the Warrior climbed the ladder. At the top, he levered a locking plank aside and thumped on the trap door. The dust of years drifted down, but the panel didn’t budge until a second strike jumped it outward. He heaved it over, and icy wind raced in circles around the shaft, whipping the leaves into a frenzy.
Landra raised an arm to shield against the invading brilliance from above and squinted at the Warrior’s disappearing form. He temporarily blotted the light. Then he was gone.
Not again. You didn’t say to follow, but maybe that was implied.
Stuffing an extra knife into her cloak, she prepared to abandon her city. She climbed toward the brightness, barely under
standing why anticipation quickened her breathing and overrode her fear.
A bright, crisp day welcomed her at the top. She planted her feet on the wooden roof, covered her eyes from the sun she’d only seen in drawings, and sucked in a lungful of fresh air. A familiar odor rode on the current, and she tried to identify its source. Thisk came to her side and recognition dawned. The same scent permeated his clothes, and she knew this was his world. He smelled of the outdoors.
He flipped the trap door, and it thudded closed with a jostle of leaves. “The guard will lock that from inside.”
“Lock it? How will we get back to Hux Hall?”
“We won’t. Not today.”
“What? This wasn’t part of the deal.” She knew she shouldn’t shout at the Warrior Fourth, but containing her alarm proved impossible. This place was worth a visit, but staying for any length of time felt like an invitation to death. “I have to go. Chief Hux wants to meet me and… I’ve got jobs to do.”
Thisk ignored her disrespect in a way Winton would have never managed. “There is no deal. We’re not bargaining, and your jobs can wait. Besides, Griffin left the city.”
Landra’s jobs couldn’t wait. Explaining her promotion to Dannet might save for tomorrow, but Medic Gren wouldn’t accept her absence. Missing training with Bexter seemed unimportant by comparison, but her chest hurt with disappointment.
“I’m only a citizen, so it’s not up to me to miss the meeting, even if Chief Hux isn’t around. I have to obey rules.”
“Really?” Thisk snorted. “I look forward to watching you follow rules. Are you going to do that now?”
Her mouth gaped at his smirk, and his grin stretched wider.
Insufferable man.
“Look at me, Hux. I’m a ranger Warrior operating outside of the city, where Jethran standards are of limited use. If the chief wanted you to follow rules, do you think he would have put me outside your door?” He spun about and marched toward the tree before Landra’s shock had time to register on her face.
Not obey rules—ridiculous!
She stared at the back of his mottled cloak, trying to comprehend his meaning. Surely, this couldn’t be the man Father had entrusted with her care and training. She stormed after him to where the tree trunk rose out of the city roof.
“What does Chief Hux expect me to learn out here?”
Thisk scratched his beard. “Not sure. He doesn’t know we came.”
“What?”
The trap’s locking bar slid into position from below. She twisted her cloak tight around her shoulders, trying to calm her anxious breaths and form her next question.
“What do you think I’m going to learn from freezing my butt off up here?”
Thisk only shrugged.
You don’t know. Shelk! How could this happen? Father, what did you do to me?
“You’re supposed to have the answers. You’re my tutor.”
“I told you. I’ve not trained anyone before.”
Landra’s mouth opened, but the Warrior’s raised hand silenced her protest.
“Look, Hux, reading from books isn’t worth our time, but I can show you the world you’re destined to command. Isn’t that worth something?”
From outside its walls?
She refused to take the blame for missing her meeting with Father. Thisk’s reckless behavior would go in her report, and the Warrior could bear that punishment. Gren was a different matter. Defying the doctor would pull a demerit for sure.
Her head throbbed, her gut ached, and her body locked with stiffness, but she had learned one lesson already. She would never underestimate the recklessness of Warrior Fourth Thisk or the dangers of a history lesson.
Her gaze turned out to the world that she saw for the first time. Right now, she would willingly swap the vast, inhospitable expanse for a training session with Winton—and she wouldn’t even complain.
Chapter 8
“Eyes here.” Thisk pointed to two target-sized plaques pinned to a tree trunk.
Landra reset her expectations to cope with the turn of events and honed her gaze on the Warrior’s finger.
“This top diagram shows the four outlying cities, plus Central City here.” He pointed toward the map’s center.
She’d never seen map view, so maintaining a show of indifference was tough. “Aren’t there six cities?”
“New City was built after the maps were drawn, but it’s way out between First and Third,” he said, waving across the overlevel toward the distant forest.
She peered over the rooftop’s curved fences and dotted trees, trying to pick out a city skyline in the expanse beyond. A green forest stretched toward distant foothills, and mountains rose on the horizon, their uppermost caps swathed in fog and snow. There was no sign of civilization.
Rumors suggest her mother had been lost in that wilderness. Her secret hope of a reunion died. Even if the woman had survived, finding her in that vastness would be impossible.
“Citizen!” Thisk snapped. “Pay attention.”
“I am.”
He raised an eyebrow. “This detailed map below shows Central City’s midlevel.”
This could be interesting. She examined the circular diagram and recognized several reference points. Hux Hall, the main concourse, and Cadet Hall were listed by name.
“We’re here.” He indicated to a sword emblem, which marked their position in relation to the geography below. “If we’re parted, head for the nearest tree. Not the tall firs beyond the city limits, but these leafy trees with silver trunks rising through the roof. They all have shafts.”
Landra only heard one word. “Parted?”
“It’s a precaution. I’m not leaving you.”
“Good to know.” An anxious knot squeezed her stomach. Thisk had already marched off twice and she had to believe he might do it again, but this training was Father’s will at work, so she had to deal with her situation.
“If you knock and identify yourself, a sentry will let you in,” Thisk said. “But avoid that if you can. Turning up alone will cause a scene and make a stack of paperwork. Now, let’s move out.”
The Warrior set off along a fence line and Landra followed. He couldn’t have taken more than a hundred strides before he threw his bag to the ground. “Here.”
“Here? What’s here?”
“The place we test you,” Thisk said.
He dropped his bow and quiver, and he swung off his cloak. The fabric snapped in the wind, so he secured it behind a fence. Drawing his sword, he stabbed the blade tip into the ground. The planks underfoot resembled indoor flooring, but this wood looked toughened. It refused the blade’s bite.
“Prepare,” he ordered.
Landra stared at him, barely able to see his eyes between the fullness of his beard and the brim of his hat. “You want me to fight?” She swayed in the wind.
“Not fight, Hux. I might bend rules, but there’s been enough law breaking for one cycle. We’re going to train.”
Her gaze roved over the barren expanse, windblown leaves, and Thisk’s menacing form. “Here?”
“It’s the perfect place to hone your skills. If our army engages in war, you’d better hope it’s outside; otherwise, we’re fighting amongst ourselves or enemies have breached the city. What better place to test out a new leader?”
He raised his sword in readiness. Once set, the gale didn’t budge his solid frame. The loose sleeves of his thick shirt slapped against his skin and wild wisps of hair fought free of his hat.
Landra took a deep breath. She relished training, but this was the second peculiar battle she’d faced in as many days. As she unbuckled her cloak, the flaps flew backward over her shoulders, allowing the cold to penetrate her jacket. Shudders ran through her body to awaken her aches, but she faced the Warrior.
Would it hurt to challenge me when I’m prepared?
Thisk planted his feet and held his sword, sun rays bouncing off his pink-tinged blade. Landra sighed with relief that she’d not bro
ught a long weapon. Her damaged muscles weren’t ready to support a heavy blade. She discarded her gloves, despite her stinging fingertips, and reached back for the Collector. Its handle bit like ice against her tender skin.
Avoiding this seemed impossible. She took up her own guarding pose and waited for Thisk to make a move.
The Warrior stared at the Collector and bellowed out a rich laugh.
Insulting. She throttled her knife handle and ground her teeth. Winton had never laughed at her efforts. How embarrassing!
“You’re not much of a thinker, but you’ve got guts. I’ll give you that,” Thisk said.
She bristled with affront but held her position. Stupid Warrior. I might not be able to outmuscle you, but I bet I can I outthink you.
She held still, refusing to make the first move. Thisk wheeled the sword in his gloved hand before dropping the blade to his side.
What now? She relaxed.
“No, hold your position.” He pushed her knife arm back up.
She snapped into the pose, and he left her there.
Bruised and cold, the stance required more concentration, physical control, and mental strength than she possessed. She held the knife outstretched until her muscles twitched.
Thisk circled her, examining every nuance of her stance. He nudged the blade a little higher. “Here,” he said. “This is the first position of the hethra, one of our oldest fighting styles. It’s taught in Warrior Hall and should never be sloppy.”
Burning pain shot up Landra’s back and into her arms. “I can’t hold it!” Shaking overtook her, and the knife slipped from her grip. Thisk caught it by the handle before it touched the ground.
Impressive.
“It takes years of training to enter Warrior Hall and even more to perform elite moves,” she said. “Surely, the hethra disciplines are meant for seasoned Warriors.”
“If you carry an elite weapon, mastery of elite techniques is essential. I’m not asking you to perform complex fighting moves, Hux. Just the first knife position.”