"So?" She began to turn away again.
"You learn how unimportant you really are," I said. "When nobody can save you during those moments except yourself."
He mouth dropped open for a moment before she shut it and narrowed her eyes at me. "Shut up," she said. "You don't know anything."
Veri almost ran to get away from us, then. I was grateful to watch her leave. The Bulldog wouldn't be on the battlefield cheering her on after she finished her lessons, or to feed her needed information ahead of time.
Veri—like the rest of us, would live or die by her talent and quick thinking. Eventually, like the rest of us, she'd die. The warrior who fought beside her would gain a new black rose and the cycle would begin again.
Kerok's mental reprimand came back to me then, after I'd told him there had to be a better way. Find one and I'll listen, he'd said.
Would he really listen? I hoped so, because I was now determined to find a better way, with or without help from anyone else.
A fter dinner, we walked back to our barracks. I worried that Veri or someone else would sabotage our beds and belongings, but during our absence, sheets and dirty clothing had been gathered, laundered and placed back on our beds.
Drudges had done that for us. Usually we changed the linens ourselves and piled the soiled ones in a cart that was gathered by drudges while we trained and learned.
They'd become almost invisible to us, and I realized that those trainees who'd already washed out had joined their ranks.
Sadness filled my mind, as they could have been taught—I felt it in me as surely as I could feel my heartbeat. If they'd had better teachers other than failed trainees, then perhaps things would be different for them.
A seed of an idea began to form in my mind, but it would require a great deal of thought and stealth if I were to fully consider it as an alternative. In the meantime, I had to deal with the watchful eyes of both Veri and the Bulldog, who'd settled blame on my shoulders for something I had no hand in.
It would also require that I lose my fear concerning a certain talent, if this were to work at all.
Resolving to try it the following evening, I placed the clean uniforms inside my trunk and sat on my bed to consider how things were, and how they might be improved.
K erok
"Commander." Armon set a bottle on my desk. After the days away, I was behind on my written records. A drudge had brought my meal and I'd worked while eating.
"What's this?" I looked up at Armon.
"Something Levi and I thought you should have."
I turned the bottle until I could read the label. "Whiskey?" I was surprised.
"We were supposed to be out for a long drive, and weren't really expecting the worst of all possible outcomes from it," Armon said. "Either way, that's yours, now." He turned to leave.
"Armon?" He stopped when I called his name.
"Yes, Commander?" He turned back to face me.
"Thank you. And thank Levi. It is much appreciated."
"You're welcome. Good-night, Commander."
"Sleep well, Captain."
Sherra
If I thought the Bulldog was bad before, barking at everyone who displeased her, I hadn't considered facing her cold fury.
Only a minimum of commands were given as we went through our morning exercises on the field, after which the Bulldog sat alone in the mess, choosing to cast hate-filled glares at this trainee or that during the meal.
She refused to look in my direction. Somehow, I knew that wasn't a good thing. Following the Bulldog's lead, Veri chose a table not far from our instructor's, and only two others had the courage to sit near her.
Something was bound to explode in one or both of them; I simply didn't have an idea when it could happen. All I and the others could do in the meantime was struggle to be perfect, lest we face the Bulldog's ire or punishment.
"What are we going to do?" Wend whispered as we walked toward our classroom for afternoon lessons.
She didn't need to say more—I understood she felt the Bulldog's icy anger as well or better than the rest of us.
"I don't know," I replied. I'd been marked before we'd left North Camp to shield vehicles. Upon our return, and with the loss of a pet and the receipt of a letter from the King, things had worsened for all of us.
Except Veri.
The last thing I wanted to do was inform Armon—this was our problem and I didn't want to run to the warriors every time something wasn't going our way. Besides, if the Bulldog found out, heavier punishment would land on our shoulders.
That night, we found out what our punishment would be—a night march.
As if some of us hadn't already had one in less than three days. It galled me, too, that the Bulldog allowed Veri to call the drill as we marched from one training field to another, until two hours before dawn.
I almost didn't see the drudges when we were herded into the showers by a smirking Veri; we'd caught them right as they'd finished cleaning up and doing laundry.
Several I knew were from the current training class, and already their eyes were empty and devoid of hope.
If I'd been more awake, I'd have pondered whether it was worse to die on the battlefield or face the rest of my life as a drudge for the King's army, with no other job than to cook, clean and wash, unless you were fortunate enough to act as an instructor.
The why of some drudges acting as instructors still baffled me, and I wanted to ask Armon or Kerok about that. How were they chosen to instruct others—did they have a talent for teaching? If so, I'd never seen it in the Bulldog.
Armon would probably tell me I thought too much and refuse to answer. Kerok would likely bark and refuse to answer.
The Bulldog?
I wished to stay as far away from her as possible. My question would go unanswered, because I was afraid to ask it.
Jae fell asleep at breakfast; Wend woke her so we could march to the field for regular drills.
The Bulldog had crafted her revenge well—more than half of our cohort fell asleep during our midday meal. The master stroke came after that, however, when the Bulldog proceeded to impart necessary information in a monotonous drone during class, where heads were nodding and women struggled to keep eyes open.
There was no talk after the evening meal in our barracks; covers were pulled back and trainees slept with the lights still shining over our heads. I cursed the Bulldog mentally, calling her as many names as I'd learned in my village and from the warriors on our short mission away from camp.
Veri, however, was still smug, and I wondered at how she'd remained awake and alert all day, while the rest of us struggled to do so.
K erok
"It helps to have spies here and there, no matter where you are," I said, handing the note to Armon, who sat before my desk. I'd called him in, after asking Levi to guard the door to my temporary office at the training camp.
My father would laugh and call this space rustic. I wondered how he'd view the barracks, which were worse.
Neither he nor Drenn had ever slept in such a place, let alone the barely-covered ground with only a tent over their heads on the battlefield.
"It's no secret about the night march, or that the Bulldog is setting her other pet up to command the rest of her cohort," Armon nodded while he read the note. "Giving a marching draught to a trainee is a violation of the rules, however."
"I figured she'd react in some way to transfer her anger, and a night march is harmless enough," I shrugged. "The other is certainly cause for dismissal."
"Are you planning to do it?"
"At the end of training, because we don't have anyone ready to take the Bulldog's place," I said. "In the meantime, we'll keep watch and wait. I doubt the Bulldog will try anything blatantly against the rules. She's angry and taking it out on her black roses, just as I imagined she would. Hunter is already going through the records, searching for a replacement for next season."
"We have become complacent, haven't we?" Armon
asked. "Letting things go, because our numbers are falling. The Bulldog should have been given the boot years ago."
"Yes." I considered Merrin in all that, too. Perhaps I should have asked Father's Diviner to dig deeper into his misdeeds before I left him in the poisoned lands. I blamed myself, too, for being a friend instead of his commander for so many years.
"You're thinking about Merrin, aren't you?" Armon asked.
"You always have better insight than most," I agreed. "For now, leave me with those thoughts—I haven't finished chastising myself, yet."
"Don't be too harsh on yourself—sometimes we fail to see the owls for the cactus," he said.
He was right. Small owls often nested in the tall, long-needled cactus that dotted the King's lands. Most only saw the cactus and didn't look closer to see the owls that made a home within.
Merrin was a strong and successful warrior; he'd had faults, however, and I'd missed them—or ignored them—far too often in my past.
"We live by a different code, Commander," Armon rose and dipped his head to me. "It isn't difficult to see the necessity of it, most times."
"Thanks for the advice, Captain. Have Levi place one of the others outside my door."
"Yes, Commander."
CHAPTER 7
Sherra
"What do you know about the drudges?" I whispered to Wend at breakfast. "Is their power removed when they wash out?"
"I heard that," she dipped her head in a slight nod. "At least with the ones who wash out early. I only got to talk to one of them, while I was in the showers one day."
I felt deflated and defeated, then. My plan was now no plan at all. I needed information and there was nobody with real knowledge instead of hearsay and rumors to answer my questions.
Well, there was one way, although I wasn't anxious to be slapped down and told it was a foolish idea in mindspeak.
"What are you thinking?" Wend hissed at me. I'd stopped eating in favor of staring into space.
"About foolish notions," I admitted and dipped my fork into the pile of beans on my plate.
M ore shield training awaited us after breakfast, only this time, it was an exercise as to how quickly we could form and remove a shield.
High on the stands near the parade fields, the warriors had gathered to watch. This was the beginning of our training to raise and lower a shield, to allow a warrior to send a blast before protecting him from falling bombs and shrapnel again.
Yes, it was effective on the battlefield—and exhausting.
I though it far from efficient, too. There had to be a better way.
"Ow," Jae yelped as the ball the Bulldog hurled hit her squarely in the shoulder before she could reconstruct a shield. Wend, standing beside her, had tossed a ball outward after Jae removed her first shield to allow it through.
The Bulldog had thrown her ball immediately after Wend's, giving a trainee new to the idea no time at all to react.
Surely the warriors on the field could time their blasts better than that.
The rest of our cohort waited our turn to be embarrassed or coddled by the Bulldog in this newest exercise. Here, we played with hard, wooden balls that would leave marks and bruises. On the battlefield, I imagined we'd wish for wooden weapons to hit us instead of rockets carrying explosives.
I doubted the Bulldog had ever come close to those weapons. In that respect, some of her trainees were already more experienced than she would ever be.
Jae was hit three more times out of the four the Bulldog required before moving on to the next trainees. I waited as patiently as I could while my mind worked furiously on the problem of dealing with incoming and outgoing balls, which represented incoming and outgoing deaths.
Wend's turn came next, and I didn't like the spiteful expression on the Bulldog's face as she prepared to throw. Tera, who was tossing the ball near Wend, looked terrified. The Bulldog hit Wend hard in the chest on the first throw.
K erok
We'd watched two other classes deal with raising and lowering shields before the Bulldog's turn arrived. So far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
I waited for one particular student, however. How would she deal with this—and how hard would the Bulldog's balls be thrown at her?
In all my forty-five plus years in the army, I'd never seen a trainee not get hit on their first day of this exercise. The instructors knew not to aim for the head; they'd be punished if a trainee came off the field with a head wound. They also knew not to cause serious injury—this was training, after all, and we were supposed to be on the same side.
"The Bulldog is throwing harder and faster at the ones she doesn't like," Armon pointed out. He and Levi sat beside me on the top tier of the stands, watching the exercises on the field.
The other warriors sat below us, assessing the trainees and mentally ticking off names for the lists they'd enter.
This was life or death for them, in actuality. The ability of an escort translated to the warrior's ability to keep his life—unless they were extremely talented or lucky.
Armon and Levi were better at many things than Merrin had ever been; therefore, both were still alive. They'd risen in the ranks slower than others, too, because they often received the least talented among the black roses.
Perhaps things would change—for Armon at least. He now held a Captain's rank, and that was often much sought-after.
"Sherra!" The Bulldog's bellow from the field below us tore me from my thoughts.
"Here we go," Levi breathed from his seat beside Armon.
Sherra stepped forward; the one called Misten moved forward with her. Misten would toss the ball outside Sherra's shield area when Sherra lowered her shield.
The Bulldog intended to hit Sherra on the first try—I could see the determined set to her shoulders as she gripped the ball she held tightly.
"What's she doing?" Armon asked as Sherra took the ball from Misten for a moment, handling it as if it were on fire before passing it back to Misten, touching Misten's hand as she did so.
"No idea," Levi shrugged in reply.
I had no comment; I was just as mystified as Armon by Sherra's actions.
"Place your shield," the Bulldog barked.
"The shield is up," Sherra replied, just like the others before her.
"Throw the ball, Misten," the Bulldog shouted.
As expected, the Bulldog launched her ball at the same moment Misten did. Misten's ball sailed high—clearing Sherra's shield space easily and landing near the edge of the practice field fence.
The Bulldog's ball hit Sherra's shield so hard it bounced far past Misten's, landing in another cohort's practice space. "I'll be damned," Armon breathed beside me before standing to get a better look.
"They crossed the line in midair—I swear it," Levi said. "The balls crossed the line at the same time."
"Wait for the next attempt," I said, motioning for Armon to sit. "It's probably coincidence and nothing more."
"Yeah." Armon sat heavily beside me, keeping his eyes on the field as if he were afraid of blinking.
"She's handling the second ball," Levi said as Sherra lifted it from Misten's hands. That's when I knew something was happening during that step. I merely had no idea what it could be.
"Armon, if she does the same thing all four times, then I want a word with her—and Misten—when this is over."
"Of course, Commander. I'll step to the field afterward and inform the Bulldog."
Sherra
My shield recognized itself—that's what I intended. I'd had no idea whether it would work when the Bulldog called my name. It was a hasty plan, as I had no doubt that the Bulldog would attempt to harm me with one or more of the balls she hurled in my direction.
In between, I passed hasty mindspeak to Misten, who would be up next. The Bulldog would hit any of us she could, because she hated me and anyone associated with me.
She'd already put bruises on Wend's chest—I knew that when Wend walked back to the other tra
inees, one arm crossed over her heart.
"Instructor," someone shouted behind me.
I turned swiftly to see that Wend was on the ground—and turning blue.
"No!" I ran toward her, even as Commander Kerok appeared on the field with Levi and Armon right behind him.
Wend's shirt was torn open, revealing a spreading, purple bruise over her heart where the Bulldog hit her.
"She's not breathing," Jae wept as Kerok knelt beside her, shoving the remnants of her shirt aside. With Levi's and Armon's hands on his shoulders, Kerok's hands filled with light and power before he released it into Wend's body.
Her body jerked upward immediately, while she coughed and gasped for breath. That's when the Bulldog walked up, casually asking if there were anything she could do.
"You're done," Kerok rose to his feet and hissed at the Bulldog. "I've had enough of this. You'll receive your dismissal papers from the King this afternoon. Your trainees will be portioned out to the other instructors—I'll see to it myself."
"It was a stray blow," the Bulldog snapped at him. Kerok took a step toward her—and then another.
The Bulldog quailed before his fury. "Go to your quarters and wait there. Do not go anywhere else or speak to anyone else. Is that clear? A list of all the charges against you will be given to the King. Perhaps, if you're lucky, you'll be serving on one of the farms for the rest of your days. You have no business training black roses. Go now, before I do worse than vent my anger."
The only one who wept as the Bulldog walked away from us was Veri, and none attempted to comfort her.
"Sherra," Kerok turned toward me, then. "Armon will come for you and some of the others tonight. You will be questioned in this—for the official record, you understand. Armon, see that Wend is taken to the infirmary. Levi, take these trainees back to their barracks, and I'll determine who goes to which cohort by dinner tonight."
The Rose Mark: Black Rose Sorceress, Book 1 Page 9