LITMIR.BIZ

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then. Ready, begin. High punch, high block! Middle punch, middle block! Low punch, low block!’

      His teaching partner, the Shang Wildcat, peered into Owen’s face. She was an older woman, her skin lightly tanned from summer, her close-cropped curls silvery white. ‘What are you looking at the seniors for?’ she asked Owen, pale eyes glinting. ‘You don’t get to look around till you punch like a fighter, not a cook kneading bread.’

      Kel tried to will more vigour into aching muscles. At breakfast Faleron and Roald had said that everyone was exhausted when they first donned the harness, or when new weights were added, but Kel didn’t remember if she had noticed the older pages struggling last year.

      ‘I hear the third day’s worse,’ Neal moaned as the bell rang. It was their signal to lurch to the yard where Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko drilled them on staff combat.

      ‘I just want to live through today,’ said Merric as they filed down the hill.

      The fourth-years, walking behind them, pushed by the younger pages to take the lead. They did it roughly, yelling, ‘Oldsters first!’ Passing Kel, Joren thrust his elbow back, clipping her black eye. Kel gasped and bent over, covering her throbbing eye.

      A cool hand rested on hers, and something flowed through her fingers. The pain vanished. Kel took her hand away, and glared at Neal.

      ‘It still looks nice and puffy and colourful.’ His voice was dry, his green eyes worried. ‘Kel, we have to do something about him.’

      ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘stay out of his way. Joren’s a page for just one more year, and that’s what I mean to do.’

      ‘She’s right.’ The prince stopped beside them. ‘If she takes revenge, she’s the one who will look bad.’

      ‘So there,’ Kel told Neal, and marched on down to the next practice court. Beneath her calm exterior she wished fiercely that she could pound the meanness out of Joren. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do better to ignore him. Water, she thought, collecting her staff from the shed where it was kept. I am a summer lake on a windless day, clear, cool, and still. Joren is a cloud. All he can do is cast a shadow on my surface. I’ll be here long after he’s gone. She concentrated on that thought fiercely until Lord Wyldon and the sergeant barked orders for the first series of exercises.

      The yard rang with the clack of wood striking wood and yelps from those pages whose fingers got hit. Kel listened to the noise and let it fill her – it worked better than thoughts of a clear lake to clear her head. At least she was less stiff after their time with the two Shangs.

      Settled into the rhythm of the first exercise, she looked for the training master. Lord Wyldon watched them from the fence. Keeping his eyes on them, he crouched to scratch the ear of an ugly white dog with black spots.

      Kel’s attention wavered; Faleron smacked her collarbone with his staff. The force of the blow drove her to her knees as pain shot like lightning through her right side.

      ‘Kel, you didn’t block it!’ cried Faleron, appalled. ‘Neal—’

      ‘Back in line, Page Nealan!’ Ezeko ordered as he came over. ‘If there’s a break, she’ll see a proper healer!’ He knelt beside Kel and felt her collarbone, his fingers gentler than his face. He was a barrel-chested black man, a Carthaki veteran who had fled slavery to enter Tortall.

      ‘Just – a bruise, I think,’ Kel said, gasping for breath. ‘The – the strap—’

      The sergeant pulled her jacket aside, examining the harness. ‘You took the blow on that?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t feel anything broken.’

      Kel nodded.

      ‘Stupid,’ Ezeko told her. ‘You haven’t let anybody land one in months. I don’t care how tired you are, pay attention!’

      ‘If we are done fluttering over the girl?’ Lord Wyldon demanded, walking over. ‘Back to work, lads. Can you use the arm?’ he asked Kel gruffly.

      The emperor’s soldiers fight with broken arms, Kel thought, remembering the hard-faced men who defended the Yamani court. It isn’t broken, just bruised. Really bruised. She nodded, meeting Lord Wyldon’s gaze squarely.

      He sighed. ‘Yancen of Irenroha, pair with Faleron.’ Yancen, a third-year, obeyed. ‘Mindelan, with Prosper of Tameran.’ Prosper was a new page. Kel saw what Lord Wyldon intended: she could defend herself against Prosper even with a bad right arm. As Wyldon continued to rearrange the pairs, Kel glanced at the fence where he’d been. Jump noticed her look and wagged his tail.

      Neal saw the dog as they were putting their staffs away. ‘Is that—?’ he asked. Lord Wyldon was scratching Jump’s spine.

      Kel nodded.

      ‘I thought you gave him to Daine,’ Neal murmured.

      ‘I did,’ she replied. They walked to the archery courts with the other pages. Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko brought up the rear, Jump trotting beside them.

      ‘You know, if he doesn’t want to stay, Daine won’t make him,’ Neal whispered.

      Kel sighed. She did know. The Wildmage had refused to change the nature of Kel’s contrary mount Peachblossom. ‘That’s why she said she would try to keep Jump,’ Kel told Neal gloomily as they gathered their bows and quivers of arrows. ‘Because she thought maybe he wouldn’t stay with her.’

      When she looked around halfway through the archery lesson, the dog was nowhere in sight. Kel took heart. Perhaps Jump had realized Kel wouldn’t encourage him.

      Perhaps he’s off stealing and getting chopped up by that cook, a treacherous voice whispered in her mind. Kel ignored it. She couldn’t solve the world’s problems, after all. Not yet, at least.

      Her relief and worry turned to resentment as the boys reached the pages’ stable for their final morning class. Jump sat by the door, scratching one of his scars.

      ‘Go away,’ she muttered as she walked by. ‘Go back to Daine!’

      As she opened the door to Peachblossom’s stall, the dog trotted in ahead of her. His jaunty air suggested that a horse of Kel’s was a horse of his. Peachblossom instantly put back his ears, retreated until his rump hit the stable wall, and stamped. Jump sat and regarded the horse.

      Peachblossom was a horse to regard with care. He was a small destrier who would have been too big for Kel if he had not allowed her to ride him. He was gelded, with strawberry roan markings: reddish brown stockings, face, mane, and tail, and a rusty coat flecked with white. Only three people could handle him without getting bitten, Kel, Daine, and the chief ostler, Stefan Groomsman.

      ‘Ignore the dog,’ she advised the gelding as she stiffly went over him with a brush. ‘He thinks he belongs to me, but he’s mistaken.’

      Peachblossom snorted disbelief, but he’d found the apple Kel had brought, and he did like the brush. He stepped away from the wall.

      Despite the pain in her shoulder, Kel put the riding saddle on him and mounted up. This week there would be no work with the lance and the heavier tilting saddle. The pages would be riding only, the seniors to show they hadn’t gone soft over the holiday, the first-years to show they could manage a horse. It was boring, but as the ache in her shoulder spread, Kel decided boredom was preferable.

      At least Jump didn’t follow them out, or if he did, he made sure Kel never saw him. She was able to concentrate on putting Peachblossom through his paces until the end-of-morning bell. She returned to the stable and groomed her mount, glad the morning had ended.

      Faleron, whose fire chestnut was Peachblossom’s neighbour, leaned on the rail between the stalls. ‘Kel, I’m still not sure about that catapult problem,’ he confessed, embarrassed. He knew more Tortallan law than any other page, but mathematics came hard for him. ‘If I fetch it to lunch, would you take a look?’

      Kel nodded. ‘You didn’t

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