Magak grinned, beckoning to Drez. "Come on, little girl. You'll never fight like a warrior, but I can help you die like one."
Drez growled and stalked toward Magak. Joti got to his feet. Magak smiled, confidence radiating from her like heat from a fire.
She thought she ruled the field of battle. Anyone watching would agree. But Joti's father had warned him against overconfidence. No mortal warrior or chieftain could ever truly rule the field. In the end, all battles belonged to Kard, the lord of war. And there was one thing Kard hated above all else: being bored. Whenever two forces fought, no matter how poor the odds, Kard made certain that the outcome was always in doubt.
Magak had forgotten this.
Drez feinted forward, drawing a poke of Magak's staff. Yet the jab was just a feint as well; as Drez bowled toward her, Magak swept the pole toward her right temple. Drez jumped back to avoid the whooshing staff and Joti sprung forward.
Magak took a clumsy swipe at his head. It wasn't a square blow, and he took most of the impact across his forearms, but he dropped anyway, falling face-first a few feet from Magak. He went still, eyes almost but not quite closed, his nose mashed into the blanket of damp leaves. Magak smirked and turned to face Drez.
"Joti!" Drez yelled and charged.
Magak jabbed at her middle. As Drez dodged, she slipped, falling to her side. Magak cocked back the staff for a full swing. Drez threw her left arm over her ear. It wouldn't be enough to ward off the killing blow. Magak slashed the pole toward Drez's head.
Joti was already on his feet. He leaped on Magak's shoulders and sank his fangs into the back of her neck. Fluid burst into his mouth, hot and salty, tasting like the smell of a freshly honed axe. Magak shrieked, silencing the birds, and stumbled to one knee. Drez drove her heel into Magak's nose, crumpling it. The older girl dropped her staff in pain and thrashed at Joti, clawing at his cheeks. He clamped his teeth down harder yet.
Drez snatched up Magak's staff and clubbed her in the ribs. Two blows to the head, and Magak went limp, sprawling into the leaves.
Joti picked himself up, spitting blood. "We did it!"
"Not yet." Drez planted her feet on either side of Magak's head and lifted the staff skyward, preparing to drive its tip straight down.
Joti grabbed for the staff, stopping her. "Stop it! You'll kill her!"
"Not if you don't let go of my staff!"
"Why would you do this, Drez? She's already beaten."
"Do you think that's going to stop her? If she felt humiliated by us at the pool because you said something mean to her, how do you think she's going to feel after today?"
Joti took his hand from the staff, but kept his eyes locked on Drez. "Magak isn't some Gru slaver. She's not an Alliance knight here to bash our heads down the front of our shirts. She's from our own tribe."
"So what? She was going to kill us, you idiot. The gods say she deserves to pay in kind!"
Joti's hands were shaking. He knew he shouldn't say the words, but he couldn't stop himself. "Then the gods are wrong."
Drez drew back her lips from her teeth, then threw Magak's staff into the mud.
He shook his head. "That's not hers anymore. It's ours. And so is this."
He kneeled beside Magak and grabbed the leather thong around her neck. It bore a claw from a grass cat, the symbol of the Half Soldiers. He pulled it from her head and lowered it over his own. Drez picked up the staff. Holding it seemed to make her taller.
They walked back toward the village to tell Joti's parents what had happened and send someone out for Magak. At the Ridik tents, Joti was relieved to find his mother was out. His dad was asleep, tent walls rolled part way up to let in a breeze.
Joti steeled himself and woke Odobo up. His dad rubbed grit from his eyes. "Let children who wake their parents from naps be cursed with many children of their own."
"The first time we went to hunt hill sheep, Magak followed us through the woods. We didn't know she was there. Today, she attacked us. But we overpowered her. And we took away her staff and her claw."
Joti took the leather cord from around his neck and handed over the grass cat claw.
His father took a deep breath, blinking repeatedly, and ran his thumb over the claw's killing edge. "Where is the body?"
"She's not dead. But she's hurt. She's still in the woods where she fell."
"Wait inside the tent. The both of you. Don't say a word to anyone until I'm back. Do you understand me?"
Odobo's eyes, normally so thoughtful, if not kind, blazed with animal fury. Joti managed to nod. His dad took Magak's staff from Drez, then left in a dead run.
Joti put down the sides of the tent. Drez seated herself on a deerskin. Her arms and face were scratched and muddy and her left cheek was starting to swell. "What will they do to us?"
The smallness in her voice seemed to come from another person than the aggressive, unflinching girl he knew. Until that moment, he'd been able to keep his fear at bay. After that, it was all he could do to keep the tears locked inside his eyes.
"I don't know," he said. "But we're going to be okay."
The look in her eyes told him clear as day that she didn't believe him.
Two hours later, the tent flap rustled. Joti got to his feet, preparing to run, but it was his father. Odobo's face was dirt-smudged from travel and his expression was as grim as a starving dog.
"Follow me. Both of you."
Legs weak, Joti stood and followed him to the neighboring tent housing the family shrine and the blackwood statue of Jaxar, founder of the Ridik, who Uggot himself had brought up to his prairies in the sky. Odobo got sprigs of sage from the shelves on the wall and went outside.
He returned with the sprigs on fire, filling the tent with the smell of burning sage. "Jaxar, I stole this sage from the Vark Tribe of the Sum Clan of the Desert With Too Much Sand. I offer it to you to ask you to protect those of your children who honor you—and to smash in the skulls of those who shame you."
He inserted the stems into a clay-filled pot at the base of the statue. Smoke wafted upward, clouding Jaxar's face.
Odobo turned and stared down at Joti, then Drez.
"Kneel. And be judged."
They obeyed.
Odobo clapped his hands. "Swear before the father of your family that what you told me is true."
"I swear it," Joti said.
"Then it is true that you met Magak Dardrin in combat in the field? That you struck her down, and lamed her leg, and took away the staff and claw that held her honor?"
Joti felt the blood drain from his face. "She's crippled? But she attacked us first. We only defended ourselves—"
"Answer me!"
"Yes, father. It's true."
Odobo closed his eyes, exhaling through his wide nose. "Grog is made to be drunk. Axes are made to be swung. And foes are made to be smited. There is no test but battle—and there is no proof but victory. Joti Ridik and Drez Crondon, you bashed down a mighty foe! Kard has recognized your strength. And so will we."
He reached into a pouch on his hip and withdrew two leather necklaces. The claw of a grass cat dangled from each. He lowered one over Drez' head and the second over Joti's.
"Stand," Odobo said. "And take your first step on the path to glory!"
Joti rose alongside Drez. He felt like he should say something—heroes and chieftains always gave hearty speeches at times like these, spilling words to stir the soul inside you—but the moment passed, and his father was grinning down at them, the right upper fang missing from his smile, lost in a fight before Joti was born.
"Enjoy this feeling while you can," Odobo said. "When your training starts next week, your muscles will never not hurt again."
He strolled from the tent in a swirl of sage smoke. Joti swung to face Drez. "What just happened?"
"I think," Drez said, "we became warriors."
~
No one had been planning to celebrate the making of two Half Soldiers, but that didn't stop the Ridik and Cro
ndon families from throwing a great feast: roast wozzit seasoned with Krannish pepper, salted fish caught in the demon-infested seas of the Wai, and a great haunch of smoked dragon plastered with Summite spices as hot as the dragon's breath.
Someone drew a ring in the dirt. People of both families began to wrestle, soldiers and shepherds alike throwing each other about for honor and glory. After the meal, the Ridiks' best boasters slandered and belittled the Crondons, who howled with laughter and responded in kind. Members of other families wandered over with gifts of dwarven spirits and leaf.
After stuffing himself beyond all comfort, including the two cups of fermented milk he'd been allowed, Joti dragged himself away from the festivities to sleep it off. Halfway to the tent, a figure padded out from the darkness.
His dad fell in beside him, chewing on a thick sprig of ovak cane. "Before you complete your transition into a useless heap, your mother wants to see you. She's at our tents."
Joti's giddiness congealed. "Dad, I don't understand. We hurt Magak. Crippled her. Why aren't we being punished?"
"The question you should be asking is why you believe we're capable of teaching you to fight when you seem to believe we're blind. Everyone knew how Magak was. She goaded anyone smaller than her into a fight. She trounced children barely old enough to say their own names."
"If you knew what she was doing, why didn't you help us?"
Odobo snorted. "Help you what? Become weak? Never learn to protect yourselves? When you're out on the hunt, and a legion of Alliance raiders steps from the trees, will you call for me to make them stop hitting you?"
Joti frowned. His father ambled over to join the celebration, which was still going strong around the fire. Joti had half a mind to sleep under the trees and claim he'd fallen asleep drunk, but he trudged back to the tent, hardening his wits to deal with his mother. She sat on a stump outside the tents studying the stars, which scouts and hunters used to help them traverse foreign lands.
She shifted her eyes to Joti, stopping him in his tracks. "After you'd taken her down. Did you think about killing her?"
"I did," he said. "I didn't think it would be right."
"You should have."
His ears burned. "I'm sorry for being such a disappointment. Next time someone attacks me in the woods, I'll be sure to come back with their toes and teeth strung on a necklace."
Her face didn't so much as twitch. "She'll resent you always. It'll fester in her like a poison. Her family will fester, too. This morning, they woke with a young warrior who'd soon add victories to the family name. This evening, they're going to bed with a crippled shepherd who'll be lucky to make more than she eats."
"Then her family should be mad at themselves for having such a stupid child."
This earned a sly smile from his mother. She put away her mirth as neatly as one of her hatchets. "I'm telling you the truth, Joti. I thought you would respect that."
He dropped his eyes to the patchy grass. "I'm not sorry for what I did."
"Then show some liver and face the consequences. We can't tell the chieftains what really happened. It would humiliate Magak's family. They'd launch a feud against us."
"Then let us defeat them!"
"If it were my choice, I'd water our yams with their blood. But the family has discussed it. The matter is too minor to war over."
Joti's anger left him as swiftly as it had overwhelmed him. "I don't understand. Would they really prefer it if she'd died?"
"Than to have a lamed wozzit-tender?" His mother touched his shoulder. "Kard blesses those who die in battle. Her name would have gone down in great glory. Given valor to her family."
"I did what I did. Tell me what I have to do next to make it right."
"Since we can't tell the chieftains of your victory, they won't respect your elevation to Half Soldier. You'll have to work twice as hard to make them believe you belong there. Do you understand?"
In the moonlight, the angles of her cheeks and jaw were as severe as spearpoints.
Joti nodded. "I won't let the Ridiks down."
She sent him to bed. He was nearly asleep before it occurred to him that he'd forgotten to tell her that it was her hunting lesson that had allowed him to bring Magak to the ground.
~
The next week, he began his training.
He and Drez were summoned to the sparring grounds just south of the village to meet Fardo, one of the Shepherds of the Half Soldiers. The man's knuckles were as knotty as pine bark, his face as creased and scarred as a mud flat in the dry season. When he spoke, his words ground together like a boulder shoved across naked rock.
Fardo gave them their staffs, shafts of hard, straight orcwood: justly named, as it was the toughest wood anyone knew, and as it only grew in the places nobody else wanted to be in. Fardo ran them through the bash and the poke, the no-you-don't and the down-you-go. When they had the basics down, he set them sparring.
Joti took to it like a snake to the dark. Within a week, he was keeping up with kids who'd been learning for three months. Within a month, he was beating them. When most orcs picked up a length of wood, a single idea popped into their head: whack it over your foe's skull as hard as you could. They wanted to use the staff like it was no more than a long, skinny club.
But Joti felt like it was more like a spear. You could use it to smash an' bash, sure, but it was better to jab an' stab. This was faster and kept you better positioned to defend yourself. When your enemy was coming at you, you didn't swing your staff at him like it was a big long sword without an edge. You jabbed forward, intercepting the tip of his staff with your own, then twirled your wrists, flicking his weapon out of the way. If you did it fast enough, with the right finesse, then as soon as the parry finished, you were in position to thrust forward and dump your foe right on his ass.
Despite his raw talent, their training left Joti bruised on every part of his body. Every morning, he woke up as sore as a hammer-struck thumb. As he walked about doing his family chores, he whipped his forearms and knuckles with short switches so they'd know what wood felt like and wouldn't get hurt by it anymore.
When he had time to himself, which wasn't often, he hung a sack of pebbles and leaves from a branch and practiced jabbing it. When he could hit it square every time, he took it down and pulled out leaves, shrinking the target smaller and smaller until it was the same width as the end of his staff.
Wrestling, however, he didn't much care for. Bearing his mother's warning in mind, he worked hard to learn, but he was the smallest of the bunch, and too often, even when he was doing the right thing, his enemy could trip him or throw him aside despite the flaws in their own technique. Their instructor, a stout woman named Hakka, liked to tell the Half Soldiers that skill beat fat, but it soon became obvious that no matter how much skill Joti collected, if his opponent was lesser-trained but sizably bigger, Joti would probably lose anyway.
Yet of all the ways they trained, the thing he hated most—far worse than wrestling, worse than learning how to put stitches in yourself, worse even than scrubbing down the wozzits—was the running.
Every morning, at dawn's first blush, the Half Soldiers gathered on the fringe of the village, got onto the northern trail, and ran. But they weren't going anywhere. They weren't delivering anything or even scouting, really, since the tribe's rangers were already doing that. You ran as far as you could—the trees were notched every quarter of a mile—and then you turned around, ran home, and told Fardo how far you'd gone.
"I hate it," Joti told his mom a few weeks into his training; he hadn't complained about anything else, but he couldn't stop himself. "There's no point to it. We should be using that time to practice something that matters."
"You don't think learning to run is important?"
"It makes me too tired to spar right. What does running even have to do with fighting?"
His mother crunched her brows together. "Most of being a warrior is what happens before the weapons come out. When you hunt, you'll nev
er catch prey you can't keep up with. When you fight, if you can outrun the enemy, you can cut them off or seize the best terrain and leave them at the disadvantage. And if you have to, you can flee. Mobility is a stronger weapon than any axe."
He crossed his arms. "Well, that doesn't mean I have to like it."
"You shouldn't like it. You should love it. When you practice until you can run all day without getting tired, then you become invincible."
That sounded like nonsense to Joti—adults loved to tell you terrible things were good for you just because they'd had to do the same terrible thing when they were young—but complaining to his mom wasn't going to get him anything but more lectures.
So every morning, he got up at first light, hit the trail, and tried to run a little further than he had the day before.
After that came wrestling or staff fighting. In the afternoons, they practiced with slings, or were shown how to track animals and people over dry terrain, or how to clean and preserve the meat they'd catch on the hunt.
Kept so busy, he'd never been happier, but despite making new friends and peers, in the rare moments he was alone, he could feel a hollowness at the base of his throat. It took him weeks to understand that, although he got to train with Drez every day, he no longer had any time when it was just the two of them exploring the wilds, swimming in pools, and catching frogs.
After three months, Fardo announced a change to their morning runs: now, the three who ran furthest would get thirty minutes of special spear instruction before dinner. The three who ran slowest would have to spend that time to run an extra three miles.
Joti wanted to learn the spear more than he wanted to sleep at the end of each day, and with all the activity they went through each day, he wanted to sleep so much he sometimes fell asleep before dinner. With such a reward in the balance, every morning, he threw himself into the race.
Yet no matter how fast his pace, a boy named Tug and a girl named Issi ranged ahead, the crunch of the leaves under their feet fading into the forest. Every single day, they took the top two slots. Joti pushed himself until he vomited trout stew, but over the first six weeks of the contest, he only qualified for the third slot twice.
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