Sure, his father would congratulate him for doing his best and pat him on the back, but Justan knew that there would be disappointment lurking behind his father’s smile. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, how could Faldon the Fierce, the greatest warrior in the Dremaldrian Battle Academy not be disappointed in a worthless son?
“Justan, wait!”
How had she arrived so quickly through the crowds? She must have left her seat in the arena early. Justan reluctantly forced his feet to slow down so that his mother could catch up.
He looked back and saw her making her way through the press of people. His mother, Darlan, was still young at first glance, but gray hairs had crept into her red curls of late. People always spoke of her beauty, but Justan saw the worry lines that creased her eyes and forehead after years of wondering if her husband would return from battle. She hadn’t liked her son following in his footsteps.
“Justan, sweetie, I am so sorry,” she said and embraced him. The scent of lavender filled his nostrils. He stiffened, but bore the embarrassment, not wanting to hurt her. She pulled back and looked at him with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? I failed, mother. You saw it.”
“Actually, I didn’t see it. You know I can’t look when you are fighting. Your father told me what happened afterwards.” Justan scowled in response, and she squeezed him again. “But it may be okay, they won’t announce the results until this evening. You did really good in the strategy test.”
“I always do well in the strategy tests.” His scores had been the best the Training School had seen in years. He had even defeated several of his teachers in the battle games.
“Well, maybe it will be enough this time,” she said.
Justan grit his teeth. “It won’t be, mother. Why would they want me? I can’t fight!”
“That’s not so!” she scolded, rubbing his arm. “Of course you can. I have never met anyone as determined as you. Why, you have been training all your life.”
It was true. He had grown up in the shadow of the Battle Academy and his first memories were of watching his father train in the backyard. He spent his childhood dreaming up war campaigns and fighting invisible monsters with a wooden sword.
He used to sneak over and watch the trainees practice, imitating their movements. On his fifteenth birthday, Justan entered the Training School himself, eager to show everyone that he was going to be as great a warrior as his father. What's more, he was determined to do it on his own. He saved up his own money to buy a pair of used swords and set out to prove that he could succeed.
Justan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I still fail. It doesn’t make sense. I have memorized every sword form, studied every great warrior. By all rights, I should excel, but my body betrays me at every turn!”
“Sweetie, you are still growing. Why your father-”
“I’m seventeen!”
His father had a spectacular musculature that brought fear into his opponents, but no matter what Justan did, he couldn’t get muscle to grow on his thin frame. He exercised twice as much as the other trainees and still he tired before most of them.
The worst part for Justan was sparring. He knew the proper stances and techniques. His mind could instantly point out his opponent’s weaknesses. But his limbs would not move as he told them. He lost almost every fight.
Darlan’s face fell. “I understand your frustration. Justan . . . you know your father and I are proud of how hard you have worked. But maybe this isn’t what you are meant to do. You have so many other talents. If you could just try something else . . .”
“Just stop! You have never wanted me to be a warrior anyway.” She didn’t refute him.
“Honey, you know I just want you to be happy . . .”
“No you don’t! Not really!” Justan winced at the hurt in her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you, I just . . .”
Justan realized that people were staring.
“Mother, I’ll talk to you more about it later. I just need to be alone, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and left.
His mother meant well, but he had been down this road before. After he failed Training School the first time, his parents had forced him to apprentice with a scholar, hoping he would enjoy putting his mental talents to use. Justan hated it. After only two weeks painstakingly transcribing soup recipes for a crusty old house chef, he quit and immediately reapplied to the Training School.
He started the second year determined not to fail again. He focused on his studies, practiced harder than ever before. He spent no time away from his training. To avoid distractions, he stayed away from the other students, even the teachers when possible. At the end of the year he had shown some improvement, but it hadn’t mattered. After everything he had done, it still wasn’t enough.
Justan forced away tears and pushed his way through the crowd with his head down. One man wearing a bright white mage robe grabbed his shoulder as he passed by. The man opened his mouth to say something, but Justan scowled into the man’s face and jerked his shoulder free.
He took a couple steps before he realized something familiar about the man. He had seen the man in the white robe around the training grounds several times watching him practice. Justan turned back, but the man was gone. Justan shrugged and continued on his way. He needed a place to think.
He wandered into the training grounds. It was a patchwork of open fields and fenced in areas where the trainees toiled to develop their bodies and hone their skills. They would be deserted now that the tests were over. His mind churned. He had blown his chance at entering the Academy. What was he going to do?
Justan sat on an empty bench near the archery range and ran his hands through his short dark hair. He could leave home, travel to another kingdom perhaps. There were other warrior schools, other training programs. None of them were as good as the Battle Academy, but there was nothing he could do about that. If they didn’t work out, he could join a king’s army, maybe climb up the ranks and make a name for himself that way. One day he could come back to his father with his head held high, having proven that he was a great warrior.
Justan heard footsteps and whispers. He paused in his thoughts and looked around. The sounds stopped. He didn’t see anyone. He got up and slowly walked away from the archery range. There was movement in the trees behind him and he began thinking that it might have been a bad idea to leave the arena crowds.
He knew better than to linger alone like this. Some of the other trainees had taken to bullying him. Perhaps it was because they didn’t like the way he kept to himself. Perhaps they resented him because of his father or maybe they just did it because they could. He didn’t understand their motivations, but he had learned to stay away from them.
Justan picked up his pace. The footsteps followed. He headed back toward the arena thinking that he could lose them in the crowd, but by the time he got there most of the people were gone and he was sure that his followers were still right behind him.
He reached over his shoulders to pull his swords, but his sheaths were empty. Justan swore. He had left the training swords with the armorer and his own swords were at home.
He ran toward the shopping district on the border of the Training School. There were bound to be plenty of places to hide there. Besides, the crowd might discourage his pursuers from making a scene.
He dodged around vendors and passers-by until he found a narrow alleyway. He ducked inside and waited for his pursuers to pass. He hugged the old brick wall, careful not to make a sound. After a few seconds, he saw two men sneak past. He didn’t recognize the big man, but the smaller one was Kenn Dollie, a buffoon who fancied himself Academy material.
Justan had fallen into trouble with Kenn when he defeated him in the strategy test earlier in the week. Ever since then, Kenn had given him grief whenever possible. So far Justan had been able to ignore the little man, but this time it looked like he meant business. Both men carried clubs.
“Why now?” Justan moaned under his breath.
He backed into the alleyway a little further to ensure that they did not see him. Just when he thought that it was okay to leave, the large man’s beefy head peeked around the entrance. Justan groaned.
“Kenn! He’s in here!” the man shouted. Justan put on a disarming smile.
“Good day. What a great testing week we had this year. Did you see that last fight?” He took a casual step forward.
The large brute squeezed his bulk into the alleyway and tapped the end of the wooden club in his palm. “My friend wants to talk to you.”
“Maybe later. I'm quite busy right now.” He took another step forward. “So, if you'll excuse me . . .” The man blinked, but he didn't move. Justan sighed and turned to run the other way.
“Justan, Justan,” Kenn said as he entered the alley from the other end, cutting off his escape. “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. You're not going anywhere.”
Kenn crept forward, his club pointed at Justan as if it were a sword. “You embarrassed me in the strategy test.”
“Come on, Kenn. It was the tests. I had to beat you,” Justan explained, though he had to admit to himself that he had indeed gone further than needed to win. At the time, he felt that he had no choice. It wasn’t personal. With his other test scores running so low, he needed to show just how good he was. He had shown no mercy. Kenn had looked like a fool.
Kenn smirked. “We both know that you had it in for me, Justan. You could have just beat me, but you had to make me look bad. Well you know what?” Kenn whacked his club against the alley wall. “Now it’s my turn to beat you and make you look bad. What do you think, Benjo?”
“I-I don’t know, Kenn,” the large man said, a hesitant look on his face. “I want to start Training School this year and I don’t need any trouble. Besides, I don’t even know the guy.”
“Benjo’s right, Kenn,” Justan agreed. “No one wants any trouble.”
Kenn scowled. “No one’s gonna hassle you about it, Benjo. This is a warrior training school. They expect this stuff to happen. Besides, you were there, he failed the last test. He’s a nobody now.” Benjo still looked hesitant. “Benjo, remember when we were little and that kid, Floot made fun of you in front of the girls? Well this guy is just like Floot. He thinks he’s better than everybody else.”
“No!” Justan protested. “Benjo, hear me out. I would neve-.” Justan ducked just in time to avoid Benjo’s club, which took a chunk of mortar out of the wall above his head.
He backed up a few steps and licked his lips, his eyes darting along the alley looking for an escape. There was none. Instead, Justan put on a disarming smile and walked calmly towards Kenn.
“Hey, I’m sorry about what happened. You are right. I beat you harder than I had to, but it wasn’t personal. I’ll make it up to you. I can show you show you how to defeat those moves I made.”
Kenn shook his head to let Justan know that he wasn’t backing off.
“Come on, Kenn I'm trying to apologize.” He extended his hand and stepped a bit closer. Kenn's guard dropped slightly.
Justan shoved the smaller man aside and sprinted for the safety of the street, but his escape was short lived. Benjo's meaty hand grabbed the sword sheaths strapped to Justan's back, jerking him to a stop. The large man pulled Justan in and wrapped two heavy arms around his torso, holding him tight. Justan struggled until he realized that the man was too strong, then snapped his head back, smashing Benjo's nose.
The big man yelped in pain and Justan broke free. He saw Kenn's swing coming and tried to dodge out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough. He caught the club square in his chest.
He sputtered, the air blasted from his lungs. Benjo’s large hands grasped him from behind and threw him into the hard alley wall. Justan stumbled and saw Kenn's club coming in again. He blocked it painfully with his forearm and started to take a swing at Kenn's face, but Benjo's foot caught Justan in the stomach. He crumpled to his hands and knees, gasping. His vision blurred.
Justan swore under his breath. Why did it always come down to this? Why couldn't his body be quicker or stronger?
He gritted his teeth, waiting for the next blow to land, but none came. There was a shout and a couple of thuds. A hand grabbed him by the collar. He was lifted to his feet.
“Are you alright?” asked a feminine voice.
Justan was more than a little confused. He shook his head to clear his vision and saw a striking woman standing before him. She was tall, perhaps a bit taller than he was. Her skin was deeply tanned, and her long hair raven black. The woman's piercing green eyes were staring right into his.
“Hello?” She spoke with a thick accent that Justan could not quite place. “Shake it off, boy! I know they did not hit you that hard.”
Justan looked down, surprised to see Kenn and Benjo on the ground behind her. Both men were unconscious, big red welts swelling up on the sides of their heads. He looked back at the woman again, his jaw dropping.
She was wearing tanned leather pants and a short-sleeved shirt covered with a dark green breastplate made of some kind of hardened animal hide. Framing her face were intricately woven braids tied at the ends with colorful green ribbons. In one hand she held a quarterstaff that was as long as she was tall, made with a strange featureless gray material. Her other hand was still holding Justan up by the scruff of his neck.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” he replied, reaching back to extract himself from her grip. He took one step away from her and steadied himself against the alley wall, doing his best to ignore his pounding head. “Who are you?”
A frown appeared on her fair face. “That is not for you to ask, boy.”
“Boy?” She didn’t appear to be much older than he was. Justan winced as he realized that he was being rude. She had rescued him after all, though needing to be saved by a woman stung his pride. “I’m sorry. I guess I should thank you. I mean . . . thank you very much.”
“That is better,” the woman said. She turned and walked away, stepping over the two unconscious men. Justan was tempted to follow her, but his head throbbed. He decided that he had better go home.
Justan’s headache eased as he walked and he decided that his ribs didn't hurt enough to be broken. A big nasty bruise was showing up on his forearm though, and he could feel a scrape on his forehead from when Benjo threw him against the wall. He hoped his parents wouldn’t notice: he didn't want to have to explain the fight on top of everything else.
The crowds were thinning. He stopped at the fountain in the middle of the market and examined his reflection in the cool water. His dark hair was disheveled and his clothes covered in dirt from the arena and the alley floor. He slicked his hair back with water from the fountain, wiped off the dirt as best as he could, and continued on his way. He felt defeated for the second time that day. His day wasn’t over.
He wandered into the neighborhood where he had grown up. Sturdy homes built by sturdy folk lined the street. Tiny tidy gardens filled the space between them. Children chased each other and squealed.
They could have lived anywhere in the city now, but Darlan preferred their old home. Even though it had been variable up and contained all the conveniences available, the building still looked much like it did as Justan grew up.
It was a two-story log-frame building with a wood shingle roof. Flowers lined the front of the house. Darlan had made it a warm and inviting place. Even now, Justan could smell the aroma of his mother’s muffins wafting down the street.
His father was standing in the doorway with arms folded when Justan arrived. Justan gulped. How long had he been waiting?
“Do you want to talk about it now?” Faldon asked, as usual getting right to the point.
“Not really,” Justan said.
“Suit yourself, then. It can wait.” He wasn’t one to push things on his son, which was one of his most redeeming qualities as far as Justan was concerned. Faldon shoved a warm sweetmuffin under Justan's nose.
“Eat quickly. We need to get down to the Academy. I just heard that they're going to read out scores early this year.”
“Why? They always wait until the end of the day.”
Faldon shrugged. “You would think that with my position on the council, I would learn about such things in advance. But no one told me about it until Tad sent a runner ten minutes ago.”
Justan walked into the front room, sat down on a padded bench, and took a bite out of his sweetmuffin.
“I don't want to go,” he mumbled.
“What?” his mother said as she entered the room already dressed in her best clothes.
“I failed!” Justan snapped. “We all know what the Training Council is going to say. I'm not getting in to the Academy and all of the other trainees know it. The only reason for me to go is to stand there and be humiliated!”
Eye of the Moonrat (The Bowl of Souls: Book One) Page 2