Chapter 36
Over the next few days, classes took on a new vigor—in incramancy, students were forbidden to use the training parchment and had begun learning to scribe incras directly in the air using their dominant finger.
Even Scholar Haile decided to join the competitive spirit and assigned even more essays than usual, as if that would help the initiates and not drain them further.
But nothing was more intense than combat practice.
Audra stood shivering in formation, dreading this lesson.
Not even scalding hot baths or Cersha’s special burning yet cooling salve had been able to ease the ache in her muscles.
Audra could barely walk, and yet, here she was, forced to endure another session.
Even with three days left she knew she wasn’t going to win the Sabre trial.
“Commander Renwick is overseeing preparations for the trial, so you sorry excuses for trainees will have to deal with me today,” announced Vrenn with delight, pacing at the head of their formation.
Groans from the host of exhausted initiates rose in clouds of air above the frigid training field.
“The next initiate to complain will be forced to train out here with me while the rest of your guild is at dinner.”
The field went silent.
“Now, I will not be sorting you into teams—instead, you will act as one army, one legion.”
Unease roiled through Audra. This was new. If they were to act as one … who was to be their foe? Audra craned her neck, looking around the grounds with the rest of the initiates, but it was only them and Vrenn braving the cold.
Unease turned to fear as a smile broke across Vrenn’s face.
“You will be tasked with defeating a construct demon horde. They may not be real demons, but they will fight, move, and kill as if they were. They will be indistinguishable from the real thing. This is how we weed out the weak. This is how we send competent troops to aid Zenaida in the war.”
Kill as if they were real? Did they truly risk dying today?
“Mist take them all, this is fucked up,” someone muttered from somewhere in formation behind Audra.
She was inclined to agree.
“It will take me a few minutes to cast the incras. In the meantime, confer among yourselves, choose a captain and your weapons. I recommend wearing the training armor; it may save you from losing a limb today.”
Vrenn got to work, scribing incras into four stone pillars at each corner of the practice field. It seemed that within the perimeters of the four corner posts, the castings—the illusory demons—would appear.
With an almost unanimous vote, Wilder was chosen as captain. If anyone was going to lead them to victory, it would be the brilliant soldier from ‘Ta Town—despite Noel’s protest that he would be their only choice for triumph.
Wilder began issuing orders at once. “Everyone, don your armor quickly. Yes, I know your hands are cold, and there are lots of buttons, Nina, but it’s for the best. We don’t have long.”
“What weapons should we choose?” asked an initiate with a crown of curls, their cheeks pink from the cold.
“Whichever you feel most comfortable with. As soon as you’re in full armor with your weapons, convene at the back of the field. If they come from the front, we will have a few extra moments to prepare before they reach us.”
The “armor” piled high on the side of the field wasn’t true armor, not the metal suits Sabre initiates had been building for the Zenaidan armies.
They were one-size-fits-all, thick pieces of leather that buttoned up the back and strapped around thighs, shins, and forearms with cumbersome ties and buckles.
Audra, Wilder, and Lottie helped each other into the heavy leather training gear and barely had time to choose their weapons (Audra, a light short sword; Lottie, a single curved blade; Wilder, a long staff with a pointed, serrated blade fastened onto the tip) before Vrenn completed the last of the incras.
Audra’s blood rushed in her ears, and she almost didn’t hear Wilder’s command to get in formation! Wilder had split them into three—right, center, and left wing, with a small pocket of reserves in the back center. If any of the front three formations fell, the reserves were to take their places.
They waited with bated breath as the seconds ticked by.
Audra looked to Wilder, who stood centered at the front, locs blowing in the wind, feet set apart, body low so her center of gravity would keep her upright when the “demons” rushed them.
She looked like a warrior goddess.
Wilder had placed Audra in the back of the formation. Audra would’ve preferred to be with her—but Wilder didn’t want her up front. Audra didn’t like this, but she also knew that Captain Wilder wouldn’t have placed herself anywhere but at the front, leading her troops.
“Hold, soldiers! Remember your training,” called Wilder, the wind carrying her raspy voice to everyone, even the reserves (the weakest, most terrified) at the far back of the training field.
Audra widened her stance, clenching and unclenching the hilt of her sword.
Waiting, waiting.
The only sound was the harsh breaths, the sniffles from the cold air, someone nervously bouncing side to side, the squelch of mud as their boots lifted and settled, lifted and settled.
All at once, a crackle of ozone, a zing from all four posts at once, and a host of demons winked into existence at the front, just as Wilder had predicted.
Callista, so many Callistas—of varying sizes, large as bulls to small as a weasel, animal-like serpentine, wolfish, vulture types with sharp, hooked beaks, flaking bald heads, and wings with blades in place of talons.
But there weren’t just Callista tier, there were also Ishean, standing on two feet, with armor and weapons of their own.
Audra couldn’t see their expressions from here, and was glad of that, because she was sure they were ravenous, eager for blood.
Audra didn’t have time to count them; she’d gotten to a dozen, maybe two, against their host of forty-eight initiates before the demons rushed toward them, so impossibly fast.
“Hold!” Wilder called, crouching lower, fingers gripping her staff, ready to meet them head-on.
But at the sight of the demons—
Any semblance of order disintegrated as the formation broke apart, initiates scattering like ants beneath the boot.
The demons did not meet three solid lines of soldiers; they met scared initiates, some who fumbled and dropped their weapons, others who crouched, plunging to the ground and covering their heads, but the worst—the worst were the initiates in the back, the reserves, who took one look at the demons, dropped their weapons, and fled the field.
“DO NOT RETREAT!” Wilder screamed at them, her voice pitched high and wild, her eyes wide and terrified.
Maybe they thought that if they could just step off the field, they would be safe—that the demons would be confined to within the four pillars and the sand and mud of the training field—but they were wrong.
So fucking wrong.
The Callista demons, their hunting instinct activated by fleeing prey, stampeded past the initiates prepared to battle them, vying instead for the runners.
Audra watched in horror as a bull-shaped Callista lowered its massive head and speared one initiate with its horns.
Bright red blood sprayed across frostbitten grass.
The initiate, speared through like a worm on a hook, uttered an earsplitting, gargled scream.
But it only lasted a moment. The bull construct shook its head, cracking the initiate’s spine.
His body went limp. The demon continued to thrash with sickening ferocity, despite the initiate being dead.
Audra didn’t see what the bull did next, because a snakelike Callista had slithered up another deserter’s body, tangling with her legs. Time seemed to slow as she stumbled and fell. The serpentine Callista wrapped around her, constricting, while the initiate writhed and struggled to break free.
There might be time … Audra took a step toward the initiate being strangled—but then, the snake reared back, dislocated its jaw, and devoured the initiate from her head down.
Audra uttered a low, keening cry of horror.
She took another step, hoping to save some—any of the fleeing initiates, but a blow hit her back.
Audra whirled, expecting a demon. But the blow was from the body of an initiate who’d been tossed by an Ishean like a rag doll.
Audra just happened to be in the way. Audra recognized the initiate—Tyralla, she’d befriended a group in Echinacea Guild.
Audra heaved Tyralla up and shoved her dropped cudgel back into her trembling hands.
“Ready?”
Tyralla set her mouth into a grim line. “Yes.”
And with a yell, they both swung on the Ishean.
Audra went high, and the initiate Tyralla, went low.
Audra swung her sword in an arc; the demon, whose eyes were focused on blocking Tyralla’s swipes at its legs, didn’t see it coming—Audra’s sword cut into its neck with a sickening squelch, and stuck.
Red blood, hot and coppery, sprayed across Audra’s face and into her mouth.
She retched, even as she yanked her sword free and hacked at the demon again, just to be sure.
The demon dropped to the ground, eyes wide, head hanging by a stretched piece of grayish skin.
The construct began to dissolve right before their eyes.
“Fuck yes!” Tyralla called in victory.
Audra didn’t have time to celebrate because a Callista construct the size of a boar, but with batlike wings and a serpentine body, opened a mouth filled with jagged teeth and clamped its jaw around Audra’s leg.
“Fuck!” Blinding pain as its jaw clamped down, threatening to crush her shinbone, but at least the leather had withstood its teeth so far.
In her effort to dislodge the beast, Audra fell, her back landing, sliding in a patch of black sand.
She kicked at its head with her boot while she scrambled for her weapon.