Chapter Fourteen
FOURTEEN
ASPETH
22 Days Before the Conquest Moon
My hands on my hips, I stare up at Guild Master Crow, trying to pay attention. It’s difficult to be in the moment this morning, because in my head I’m still stuck on last night, watching my hero vomit at my feet.
Over and over again.
“The goal of this drill is to maneuver,” Crow is saying. He clasps his hands together, walking along a wooden beam high above the obstacle course. A thin rain drizzles down on us, turning the dirt course into mud.
I hate this. I hate Master Crow. I hate mud.
I hate that Hawk canceled on us this morning and instead of him training us, we’re with strangers as he goes on a retrieval mission.
Behind me, a man flicks the hanging edge of my fledgling sash, earning chortles from his teammates. I ignore him, but at my side, Lark growls in her throat. If Guild Master Crow notices anything, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he points at each section of the obstacle course designed to test our dexterity. “Tunnel. Then climb over the boulders. Tunnel again. Sprint past the falling rocks.” Point, point, point. “Belly-crawl under the fallen wall. Tunnel again. Grab a pack and then make it across the finish line before the hourglass runs out of grains of sand. If you don’t, you’ll have to do it all over again.”
“Not much of a challenge, boss,” calls one of the fledglings. “Maybe we should all be tied together again like yesterday?” He grins over at us, showing off a gap-toothed and evil grin.
“Monster,” Gwenna mutters. “I hope your dinner gives you the shits.”
“Excellent idea, Rosto,” Master Crow says, producing two long lengths of rope. “Master Magpie’s team, tie yourselves together. My team, you do the same. We’ll have you both on the course at the same time just to keep things interesting.”
“Oh, they’re interesting all right,” Lark mutters. She catches the rope when Crow throws it in our direction and moves toward me. I take it and loop the end through my belt, handing it wordlessly to Gwenna. She watches me with a curious look but says nothing. We all tie together—Mereden at the end and Kipp at the front, ahead of me.
Then we march to the starting line, and I squint at the muddy obstacle course as it rains down even harder upon us. The group of men at our side are nudging one another and smothering laughs, no doubt at our expense, but I ignore them.
I have to, or else I’m going to start screaming.
She’s a drunk.
“Go!” Master Crow shouts, flipping over the hourglass and setting it down on the beam next to him.
Kipp races ahead, his pull so strong that I stumble. The team of men alongside us today—Crow’s fledglings—push past us, sweeping Kipp off his feet and giving me a violent shove. I stumble and Gwenna catches my arm.
“What’s wrong with you, Aspeth?” she whispers. “You’re not yourself today.”
If our class fails out, Magpie loses everything.
Everything. Everything’s wrong.
I jerk forward as Kipp rights himself and races toward the first tunnel. I stagger after him, getting on hands and knees to crawl through the damp tunnel made of rotting wood and more mud. It narrows down until I have to turn my head to the side and crawl forward using my elbows, but I manage to wriggle through and stand up, only to drip with mud, my boots and pant legs holding an obscene amount of the filth.
“ Keep moving ,” Crow screams at us. “No one told you to stop, Magpie fledglings!”
Gwenna sticks a hand out of the tunnel and I grab it, hauling her forward. She collapses on me and pants, waiting for Lark to push through. As we wait, she looks over at me. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. If I start to vent about how wrong things are, I won’t stop. Kipp is pulling at the rope, desperate to get to the nearby boulders and continue on the obstacle course. Lark pulls herself through, and then we wait for Mereden.
“Something’s wrong,” Gwenna hisses at me.
Mereden stumbles toward us, hauled up by Lark’s hand, and then we turn toward the boulders. Kipp makes an excited sound and races toward them, tugging us along. He skitters up the side of one boulder, taller than a staircase, and then holds his small hand out to me. I take it—
—and immediately pull him down. “Whoops, sorry about that.” I set him on his feet. “Apologies for the touching.”
He pats my hand as if to say Apology accepted and then turns back to the boulders. He climbs halfway up the first one and then watches us, pointing at a ripple in the otherwise sheer surface that might act as a handhold. I put a hand there and try to haul myself up.
And fail.
And try again.
Lark gives my backside a shove. “Everyone, help out.”
My face burns with humiliation as the others pitch in and more or less push me up the rock’s surface, until I’m at the top of the boulder next to Kipp and gasping for air. It takes far too long and I’m sure I’m going to have bruises in unmentionable places, but I’m up there.
“Put a hand down for me,” Gwenna says, reaching up and pressing herself against the boulder’s surface. “We can do this together.”
I reach down for her, and Gwenna latches on. Holding on to her threatens to pull me back down and I yelp in distress as her sweaty hand slips out of mine.
“Time!” Master Crow roars.
“Time? Already?” Lark puts her hands on her hips, glaring off at the distant fledgling team that is already at the far end of the obstacle course. “What the mucking fuck? We barely got started!”
Master Crow claps his hands. “Let’s do it again, Magpie fledglings. Try to do better this time.”
“Again?” Mereden echoes, her lower lip quivering. “He’s joking, right?”
I haul myself up to a seated position atop the boulder and look up at Crow. From the sour expression on his face and the smug ones of his fledglings, no, I don’t think he’s joking at all.
As I watch, one of Crow’s fledglings rubs his hands under his eyes, pretending to cry.
Another grabs his chest and pretends like he’s jiggling his breasts, and makes kissy faces as he does.
I exhale heavily. Cretins, all of them. “Come on. Let’s get back to the start and put Lark next to Kipp. Maybe that will make a difference.”
No matter how we rearrange our team, we’re terrible. By the time the day is over, we’re all covered in mud, scratched up, scuffed, bruised, and thoroughly defeated. Even Kipp isn’t his normal perky self. The moment we return to Magpie’s lodgings he dumps his shell in the corner and crawls inside, not wanting to socialize with us.
I don’t blame him. I’m disappointed in us, too.
“That wasn’t training,” Gwenna protests as we sit down in the kitchen. “That was abuse.”
“At least they helped us wash off before we came home,” Mereden says in a timid voice. She sits delicately at one of the seats at the table, manners elegant despite her fatigue. “It could be worse.”
Gwenna makes a face at her. “They weren’t helping us. They were throwing buckets of water on us because we lost. That was their reward for ‘winning’ each round of the obstacle course.”
“Yeah, but at least our clothes are cleaner.” Lark shakes out her rumpled sash and then thumps down upon a chair at the table. She grabs a couple of slices of bread and a wedge of cheese, shoves the wedge between the bread, and takes an enormous bite. “Why were we training with Master Crow anyhow? He’s an asshole.”
Everyone looks at me.
I say nothing at first, because I’m too tired. I’m relieved to see that the nestmaid assigned to Magpie’s house stopped by earlier today and left fresh bread and snacks out for us, because I don’t think I have the energy to get out of this chair and make myself something to eat. I pick one of the nuts out of a bowl decorated with guild designs and nibble on it thoughtfully. “Hawk left this morning to go on a retrieval mission.” He woke me up before dawn to let me know, dressing quickly in his leathers as another Taurian waited near the front doors to the dorm. “He was the one who arranged our training with Master Crow.”
I believe his exact words were He owes me a favor and no one else will have you , but I keep that part to myself.
“A retrieval mission?” Mereden echoes, her dark eyes wide. “What’s that?”
“Taurian,” Lark answers between bites. When she doesn’t elaborate, Mereden indicates for her to continue. Lark clears her throat. “Taurians are really good in the tunnels. They’re strong and sure-footed and have excellent direction sense. They’ve got an excellent sense of smell, too, and they can keep going when humans get tired. Whenever someone gets lost in the tunnels, they send in a few Taurians to fish ’em out. Happens all the time.”
“It does?” Gwenna wrinkles her nose, glancing over at me. “So why don’t they just send in teams of Taurians instead of humans?”
“Control,” Lark announces. “Arrogance and control. Humans want to be in charge of everything. Humans want the artifacts. And there’s not enough Taurians in the city anyhow. I think they get tired of our shit and retire after a few years to go live in the countryside and raise little baby Taurians with the lady bulls.” She shrugs. “It’s the guild’s dirt y little secret. No one has to be as good at surviving in the tunnels as they used to be because the Taurians will bail them out. Aunt Magpie would joke that passing the test is the hardest part of the job.” She opens her sandwich and stuffs another slab of cheese between the bread.
I eat a few more nuts before posing a delicate question to her. “You knew she was a drunk?”
Lark makes a face. “Everyone knows. Everyone keeps hoping she’ll turn it around, but she never does.”
“Why is she like this?” I ask, puzzled. “She has everything she could want. She’s legendary in the guild. She’s found some of the most fabled artifacts—the Sword of Starflame, the Claw of Guidance. Legends are going to be sung about her. How can she be miserable enough to try to drown herself in a bottle constantly?”
Lark takes another large bite of her cheese sandwich and glances over at Mereden. “Holders.”
My hackles prickle with alarm.
Gwenna kicks me under the table.
“You…you don’t say?” I manage delicately.
Mereden makes a sympathetic noise, then reaches for the cheese to make her own sandwich. “She had trouble with a holder? Contract troubles? I know my family can be difficult with negotiations. I’ve heard the stories.”
I wait for her to look over at me. To say something about my family, the esteemed and ancient Honori holders that have been in the northern mountains for centuries. But Mereden only nibbles on her sandwich and watches Lark.
Lark shakes her head, turning her sandwich and ripping a piece of the crust off with her teeth. “Love troubles. She fell in love with a holder’s heir. He was using her for her connections and the artifacts she’d find. Magpie always had an amazing sense for locating things even in the biggest piles of rubble, you know? Incredible things. Some people say she was like Sparkanos the Swan reborn, but with a vagina.”
Gwenna clears her throat.
“What? I didn’t say it. I said some people say it.” Lark shrugs. “Anyhow. Aunt Magpie had everything except the man she wanted. She waited for him to marry her, and waited. Five years or more, I think. Then she found out he was marrying some other holder’s daughter. Magpie confronted him and asked him to marry her instead, and he laughed. Said she didn’t have the right bloodline. I think it broke something in her. She hasn’t found anything good since.” Her expression becomes melancholy. “Growing up, my aunt was just the most exciting person I’d ever met. But for the last ten years she’s been a mess. I’m surprised Hawk hasn’t abandoned her. I think he’s the only reason she hasn’t been booted from the guild. He picks up the slack. He’s a good guy.”
I nod thoughtfully, eating a few more nuts. He might be a good guy, but he sure is grumpy to me. If there’s one thing I can say about Hawk so far, it’s that he’s protective of Magpie all right, and determined to help her out. And that means we have to try harder as a team. “Tomorrow is a new day,” I tell my fellow fledglings. “Let’s eat and get some rest, and if Hawk isn’t back in the morning, we’ll have to do that horrid obstacle course again. But at least we’ll have a better idea of what to expect.”
Gwenna groans. Lark does, too. Mereden purses her lips and looks ready to cry again.
“I don’t like it, either,” I tell them, grabbing some of the cheese and slapping it onto some bread. “But if this is what it takes to pass, then we just have to conquer it. We’ll figure it out, one way or another.”
We talk for a while longer, eating all the food set out for us and putting away the dishes. Kipp joins for a bit, not talking, just listening and nibbling delicately on bits of cheese and bread. Before long, we head to bed, and it makes me feel a little strange to return to Hawk’s quarters without him. Squeaker is there, curled up on the bed, and lets out a happy mrrp at the sight of me. I wash up and undress, climbing into bed and hugging the cat.
Here I’d thought joining the guild would solve all my problems. That I’d coast to graduation and shower my family in artifacts and save the day. Everything is far more complicated than I expected, and twice as difficult.
I’m not going to give up, though. Even if Master Crow humiliates us daily. It’s just going to make my eventual success all the sweeter.