I edited most of this chapter while wearing my Kel tank top. Dual Wield Studio has awesome Tortall merch. I was thinking about buying myself the Alanna pin with my next paycheck, then I remembered… Christmas is coming up and I suck at coming up with ideas when my family asks me what I want. XD
Tortall and all characters except my OCs belong to our Queen, Tamora Pierce.
Summer
A month after the exams, Astara had set off with a friend of her brother Payton, a knight in his late twenties named Raymont of Nenan, and she promised to write when she had the chance. All the other new squires had found knight-masters as well, save only for Mae.
"I'm not worried yet," the feline girl confided in Kellie one sunny morning. "There are plenty of knights still in the field, and more arriving in Corus every week. Now, if nobody's taken me by Midwinter, well, then I might grow a little concerned. Hurry, didn't you want to get in some archery practice before lunch?"
Kellie nodded and skipped along through the corridors. Mae still outshot her at every turn, but she'd given Kellie some advice that had improved her shooting considerably.
Once down at the archery courts, she pulled on her wrist- and arm-guards and drew a handful of arrows to practice with. Finding a bow she liked, she claimed a lane and a target to practice.
"We can be here until lunch if you want," Mae offered. "Just remember what I showed you, breathing and all."
Kellie nodded and nocked her first arrow. She did her best to clear her mind of everything but the arrow, the bow, and the target, and with a deep exhale, loosed the bowstring.
The arrow landed solidly in the target, not quite on the bulls-eye but very close. Mae whooped in approval. "Keep going! See if you can get them all just like that!"
Grinning, Kellie emptied her quiver into the target. The arrows landed close together in a neat cluster surrounding the bulls-eye. Her shooting was league better than it had been in September—regular practice, and Mae's advice, had turned her from an average archer into a very competent one.
Once her quiver was empty for the second time, Kellie set her bow down and went to retrieve her arrows, then paused at the sound of applause. She turned, finding two men leaning against the fence posts.
"Very nicely done, miss!" called the shorter man, his blond hair falling into his face as he clapped. "We'll make a knight of you yet, just wait and see!"
Kellie had to turn away to hide her blush, grateful for the excuse that pulling her arrows from the target gave her to do so. As she trudged back to the starting line to reset her quiver, she saw that the two men were talking to Mae. The taller man, a very broad knight with dark brown hair, offered Kellie a smile as she approached. "You've come a long way since I last saw you, Kellie," he complimented her.
Unable to hide her flushing cheeks this time, Kellie tried to hide her embarrassment with false confidence, and answered, "Thank you, Uncle," to the man she hadn't at first recognized as Balduin of Disart. "What brings you to Corus at this time of year?" she went on, hoping to distract the knights from her skills.
Balduin grinned easily. "I'm in Corus for the summer. Your cousin Graeme starts page training this fall, and I'd hoped this was my chance to finally take a squire. I've heard good things about you, Mae of Carmine Tower," he continued, turning back to her. "What say you? Would you like to be my squire?"
Mae tilted her head, considering. "Might I have some time to think about it, sir?" she asked, polite as ever.
"Of course, I wouldn't expect you to accept right away," Balduin agreed readily. "I'll be around, or you can have a messenger sent to Maple Manor—that's Disart House in Corus—with your answer. Good day to both of you!"
With that, Balduin gave them a cheerful wave in farewell and strolled off. His blond friend saluted merrily before following.
Mae fell onto the ground as soon as the two were out of sight. "I can hardly believe that happened!" she gasped, holding her chest. "My heart feels like I just ran from, from our keep all the way to Barony Olau!"
Kellie sat down cross-legged across from her friend. "Are you going to accept?" she inquired.
"Yes, I think I will," Mae replied once she'd gotten her breath back. "I saw him a few years ago, you know—he won a jousting tournament held near Trebond three years ago, and I understand he sponsors an orphanage in the north as well. Everything I've heard about him says he's a good man, and a good knight." She narrowed her eyes on Kellie suddenly. Kellie tried not to shrink back; that golden gaze was unsettling. "You called him Uncle; is he really your uncle, or a close friend?"
"He's my uncle, married to my papa's younger sister," Kellie confirmed. "And he is a good man. He's the one who bought me my pony, Sunset, when I was small, and you'll never catch him mistreating any person or animal. I think you'll do well with him as your knight-master."
Mae nodded solemnly. "Then after lunch, I'll find him and tell him I accept his offer. Say, why is Disart House named Maple Manor? It sounds rather silly."
"Less silly when you know that Fief Disart is one of the three biggest suppliers of lumber to both the Crown and the general markets," Kellie retorted, grinning. "If you ever have the chance to attend a timber auction, there's a good chance you'll find the Disart crest stamped on the logs. It's not just maple, either—they also deal in oak, and in softwoods too."
Mae let out an appreciative whistle. "I had no notion. Carmine Tower is heavily forested, so nearly all of our lumber comes from our own fief. I was more interested in furs, stone mining, and gems growing up when I wasn't training."
"How does it feel?" Kellie asked, nudging her friend in the ribs. "You're a true squire now!"
xxxxx
With the new squires out of the palace, training shifted considerably. Mathematics lessons became exercises in logistics and supply, and mornings were spent outlining the plan for summer training camp that year. Kellie was interested to learn that both Shang warriors, along with Lady Fianola, would be accompanying the training master to oversee the summer.
It was the second week in June when the pages were gathered into one of the classrooms and shown a detailed map of the Royal Forest. Lady Fianola succinctly outlined the route they were to take, pointing out the fiefs that bordered the place they were to set up their camp.
"We leave first thing tomorrow," Sir Merric informed them, "so I suggest you get to bed early. You will only have yourselves to blame if you fall out of your saddles tomorrow because you stayed up reading by magelight." He cast meaningful glances toward Rowan and Jameson, both of whom had been given punishment work in the last month for doing exactly that after lights-out. Jameson's ears pinkened, and Kellie had to hold back a giggle.
The morning dawned cloudy but dry, and Kellie whistled a cheerful tune as she slid the last of her things into her pack. She wished the courtyard crow a good day, and when Tessa returned from running some errand or other, Kellie greeted her with a smile. "You'll be free of me for a month, anyway," she teasingly informed the older girl as she scrubbed her face, likely the last cleaning she would be able to give herself for a while.
Tessa shook her head. "Whatever shall I do without you to look after, miss?" she joked back. "Perhaps I could take up juggling, or learn Scanran, or—" She got no further before both of them burst into laughter.
Kellie dared to wrap her arms around Tessa's middle. "I'm going to miss you, Tessa," she told her friend. "You've been wonderful to me. If you ever need anything, all you need do is ask."
Tessa smoothed Kellie's bangs off her forehead. "Of course, miss," she answered. "You're truly a pleasure to serve. Now off you go, you don't want to be late."
Breakfast was a simple meal of hard bread and dried fruit, travel food, that the pages ate while the adults inspected their gear. Everett and Marius were scolded for shoddy packing and were forced to do it over, to the accompaniment of good-natured jeers from Rowan. To Kellie's surprise, Hayden of Sigis Hold, a year older than her, was also made to repack his saddlebags, which he did with a blank expression that looked less practiced and more like he truly didn't care that he was doing the same work a second time.
The sun was high in the sky when the two knights finally gave the order to mount up. Lady Fianola led the train of pages into the Royal Forest, following a tributary of the River Bonnett that shrank into a small stream by the time they stopped for the evening. Sir Merric sent the oldest pages in search of game, the middle pages to setting up tents, and the first-years to building a campfire to cook whatever the hunters might return with. Kellie was somewhat put out that she wasn't allowed to kindle the fire with her Gift, as it was one of her few magical talents beside healing, but using a flint didn't take too long, and the flames had risen nicely by the time the older pages returned. Between them, they held four rabbits and several fish, along with a number of wild vegetables that Pathom had collected. Kellie went to bed that night with a belly that was comfortably full.
The next morning was far less pleasant, cloudy and cold, with a dampness to the air. A light rain began falling as the group was saddling their horses, causing groans from several of them.
"If you think this is bad," Sir Merric told them sternly, "just wait until you have to travel in the rain in December. I don't want to hear any more complaining, understand?"
Kellie had to bite her lip, hard, to keep from laughing out loud as she glanced at the training master. Sir Merric's red hair was plastered to the sides of his head from the rain, looking for all the world as though a sodden squirrel was perched on top of his head. A few chuckles could be heard as some of the other pages noticed as well.
The sight seemed to distract most of the pages from complaining about the weather, but Rowan received latrine duty at their next campsite for making one further comment about the cold and wet. The rain fell steadily all day, lightening up a few times, but never stopping completely. Everett spotted an overhang of rock creating a small sort of cave, where the group set up camp for the night. Kellie felt sorry for their mounts, who wouldn't fit in the small shelter—it was hardly big enough for the humans—and brought Blaze a few handfuls of tasty green grass she'd collected while using the latrine.
A week passed that way, moving from campsite to campsite, until finally the group entered a large clearing and Sir Merric called a halt. "This will be our main camp for the next several weeks. Your mounts will be kept in there—" He nodded toward a wooden structure that Kellie decided resembled a stable if she squinted, albeit a stable that had no wall on one entire side. "—and I expect you to look after them yourselves. There are no hostlers out here."
The training master proceeded to send two or three of the pages to do tasks like gathering firewood, collecting water from the stream, building a fire pit, and digging latrines. Marius and Everett were sent to dig a latrine for the boys on one side of the stream—"Make sure you're at least seventy paces from the water!" cautioned the man—and Ulasu was told to do the same for the girls. Kellie was sent to starting the fire, though she still wasn't allowed to do it magically, but it was simple enough to get the blaze going with her flint, and the flames crackled merrily by the time all the pages returned.
Lunch was a simple affair, consisting of dried fruit, hard bread, and jerky from their packs. Sir Merric told the pages they could do as they liked until evening.
After a visit to her latrine, Kellie decided to take a walk and take stock of the surrounding area. A high outcropping of rock provided her an opportunity to get a view from above. As she clambered up the less-sheer side of the mass, she wondered idly how long it had been since she'd climbed something.
While none of the others were nearby, she could easily tell where they were based on the smoke rising from the trees several hundred yards away. She turned to get a better view. Shading her eyes against the sun and squinting, she tried to make out something on the horizon. Was that a castle off in the distance? Yes, she was fairly certain that was what she was seeing. She wondered which fief it was. Cavall and Conté were both nearby, and she was certain Vikison Lake was too. The castle was likely one of those.
xxxxx
It was at breakfast a week later, hot porridge with early strawberries cooked over the fire, that Lady Fianola wished the pages a Happy Midsummer. Kellie had lost track of the days they'd spent in the forest, but she wasn't nearly so startled as Ulasu, who dropped her spoon and looked up from her bowl sharply.
"It's Midsummer?"
"Indeed it is, Page Ulasu," the Eagle answered, nodding. "Why, were expecting time to stop out here?"
"No," Ulasu replied, recovering herself and looking back at her meal.
Kellie nudged her friend. "What's so special about Midsummer?"
Ulasu shrugged with a deliberate casual air, then sighed as Kellie's elbow dug into her ribs. "I miss Midsummer Festival," she answered softly, "and I miss my brother and sister. We probably won't even get to celebrate our birthday together—the last letter I got said that Ochobai was going to spend the summer studying magic in the City of the Gods, and Junim was in Persopolis with Grandda."
"When is your birthday?" Kellie inquired, surprised that it had never occurred to her to ask before.
Ulasu named a date in the middle of August, and looked up at the canopy of trees above them. "I'll see more of them next year, I suppose. Both of them plan to attend the university, and they intend to enroll as soon as they turn twelve."
"And what's Midsummer Festival?" Cas asked from her other side. "I assume it's a festival for Midsummer—" He got a shaky grin from Ulasu at his joke. "—but I've not heard of it before."
"It's a Kyprin holiday," Ulasu replied, brightening a bit. "Since Midsummer is the longest day of the year, we celebrate, in the Isles, by having a festival that lasts the entire day, as well as the days on either side. Entire city blocks in Rajmuat are closed off to wagons and filled with stalls, shops offer special bargains, and there's so much food. My favorite is a kind of sweet with a hard shell and filled with a pepper jelly. They're sweet and spicy at the same time! And there's music, and plays, and two years ago I watched a man perform on a high wire. I thought he was going to plummet to his death, but he never once slipped."
Kellie sat in silence for a few moments, wanting to cheer up her unusually morose friend but not quite knowing how, then a grin spread over her face. "I challenge you to a duel," she said in her best Kyprish, repeating a line from the storybook Ulasu had given her at Midwinter.
"I would be honored!" Ulasu gave the response, also in Kyprish, and began shoveling the rest of her porridge into her mouth, looking much brighter already. Kellie left her bowl with the rest of the dirty dishes and ran off to find some sticks that they could use to have their mock sword fight. In a forest, finding such weaponry wasn't difficult, and she was soon squaring off against her friend, as the other pages and the adults watched with interest.
"I've watched tortoises move faster than that!" Ulasu tossed the Kyprish insult at Kellie and swung the stick in a wide arc.
"Have you now?" Kellie replied, also in Kyprish. "Then how come you didn't see the root you just tripped over?"
Continuing to trade lines from the story during their mock duel, Ulasu soon claimed victory when she swung her "blade" at Kellie's left shoulder. Kellie went to block the strike, and found herself staring at the "sword" point that was right between her eyes. Nearly going cross-eyed as she took a step back, she bowed, and conceded, "I yield." The concession wasn't one she'd learned from the book, and Kellie had nearly exhausted her knowledge of Kyprish. Reverting to Common, she added, "That was a very neat feint there. You'll have to show me how you did that."
There was a smattering of applause from the watching pages. Even Sir Merric gave a few obligatory claps of his hands, but soon grew serious again. "That was an impressive display of swordswomanship, but perhaps we can get back to our morning chores before today's lessons?"
Kellie hurriedly bowed to the training master, knowing her sheepishness showed on her face, and rushed off to help Marius secure their food from a high tree branch to keep it out of reach of the animals that called the forest home.
xxxxx
While there was no official schedule for summer camp the way there was at the palace, the pages were kept hopping nearly from sunup to dusk. There were lessons in campcraft, mapmaking, hunting, tracking, trapping—one day was dedicated entirely to teaching the first-years how to tie different kinds of knots.
Fishing, both in the stream or the farther away but much wider Cavall River, became a weekly occurrence as the adults showed the pages various ways of fishing: with nets, spears, and traps. Everett surprised everybody when he flipped a large trout out of the river using his bare hands; after much prodding, he admitted that the skill wasn't an uncommon one in Shaila, and he had learned it from a few of the fisherfolk who made their living on the Tirragen River. Sir Merric ordered him to try and teach the other pages, but of the seven first-years, only Everett proved to have the patience to tickle the fish into complacency.
Kellie found the lessons fascinating. Learning how to use a sword and fight without weapons was one thing, but a knight who couldn't survive alone in the harsh wilderness wouldn't live long. She proved to be an adept hunter and a competent fisher, although her mapmaking skills left something to be desired.
"Page Kelanna, what is this meant to be?" Lady Knight Fianola inquired, tapping the sheet of paper that held Kellie's latest attempt to map the area.
Kellie took a look at the paper, poking at the smudged charcoal. "The pond to the southeast, Lady Knight. I could see it from the top of the tree." The lady had made it clear on the first day of summer camp that she had earned the title of "lady knight" and expected the pages to use it, none of the "my lady" nonsense that was reserved for most noblewomen.
The lady knight's brows rose. "Pond? You mean the little snowmelt puddle that collects in the ditch there? I'm surprised there's still water in it at this time of year." She peered at the map again. "And this?"
Kellie blushed. "A mistake, Lady Knight. I did my best to rub it out." Though she could see now that she hadn't done a very good job of it.
"Hmph." Lady Knight Fianola inspected the paper again, and finally handed it back to Kellie. "You understand the basics well enough, but your perspective needs work. Remember that what you can see on the horizon isn't as far away as it seems."
"Thank you, Lady Knight," Kellie answered, taking her map and bowing quickly. "I'll keep that in mind."
xxxxx
Carefully pulling aside a small tree limb so it wouldn't smack her in the face, Kellie cautiously bent down to look for tracks.
The group's food supplies were running low, and Sir Merric had sent the younger pages out hunting, while the older ones gathered edible plants. Kellie had discovered she had a knack for tracking, and had stumbled upon signs of a deer herd passing by recently. She was trailing them, moving as quietly as she could, and froze when she spotted a flicker of movement up ahead.
She squinted, trying to get a better view without moving her head. In front of her was—she concentrated hard—not deer, as she had expected. The herd must have been farther ahead. Instead, there were perhaps a dozen ducks waddling along the edges of the stream, and a few more swimming in a shallow pool formed by a boulder.
Better to go for the ducks that were here than try to catch up to the herd, she decided, and set her stance. Moving as slowly as possible and praying to every hunt god she knew that the ducks wouldn't be alerted to her presence, Kellie drew an arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and drew it up to her face to sight the shot. One of the drakes looked her way, with an inquisitive quack, and Kellie held her breath. After what seemed an eternity, the feathered bird went back to swimming, dunking its head under the water and coming up with its bill full of weeds. Kellie sighted at the duck once more, and released her arrow.
There was a sudden burst of noise as the rest of the flock took off, flapping their wings with startled quacks, but her shot had been true. The duck she'd hit fell to the ground. Kellie approached it cautiously, its fellows long gone by now. She whistled appreciatively—her arrow had pierced the duck's chest, killing it instantly. All those lessons with Mae had paid off, and the animal hadn't suffered.
She strung the duck from her belt, alongside the rabbit she'd shot earlier. It was time to be heading back to their camp, she decided. A duck, a rabbit, and several handfuls of greens would go a long way toward replenishing the pages' food stores, and the camp was only about two miles away, by her estimate. She stood to begin the trek back.
"Hello there, what's this?" came a cheerful voice from behind her.
Kellie gasped, her hands going to her bow and quiver instinctively, cursing herself for letting someone sneak up on her—she knew what could happen to girls who were caught alone by men! She had an arrow pointed at the intruder before she realized she'd even drawn her weapons. The man raised his hands in a reassuring gesture and took a step back. "I didn't mean to frighten you, lad." It seemed he thought Kellie was a boy—with her hair cut to her earlobes, and no hint of a figure to speak of yet, she supposed it was a reasonable assumption. His gray eyes flicked over her, taking in the scene.
It took Kellie a moment to realize she recognized him. Smiling and slinging her bow back over her shoulder—she wouldn't need her weapons for this man—she bowed. "I'm with the pages' summer camp. Sir Merric sent us out hunting for our supper." She peeked up at him carefully. "Was this duck on your land?" Poaching was a serious crime, and some lords punished those poachers they caught very harshly.
To her relief, he shook his head. "It's not a problem, lad. That stream there is the boundary. You're a page, you say? They get younger every year, it seems." He shook his head, a boyish grin on his face. Kellie couldn't help smiling herself—his enthusiasm was infectious. "Which way is it?"
"East," Kellie answered.
The knight nodded. "Well then, I'd like to come see for myself if you wouldn't mind leading the way. Let's be off!"
Nodding again, Kellie set off back the way she'd come, though on a much more direct route this time. She was content to walk in silence, but a few minutes in, shyly told the man, "It's good to see you again, Lord Owen."
He looked her up and down, in surprise. "Have we met?" Before she could answer, he fixed his attention on her face. Recognition dawned a moment later. "Queenscove eyes… so you're not a lad at all, are you? You're Neal's oldest, the one named for Kel."
Kellie nodded, and his face broke into a wide grin once more. "I'm surprised you remember me."
It had been several years, but Kellie would never forget meeting Owen of Jesslaw. He was a good friend of her father and Aunt Kel, the training master, the Crown Prince, and later, her mother. If she remembered right, he'd become Lord of Jesslaw young, only a year or two after he'd been knighted. There were rumors about his father, rumors of drunken stupors and incoherence, but that had been before Kellie was even born.
They trekked the rest of the way to the pages' camp in companionable silence. Pathom, who had been keeping watch from up a tree, scrambled down and rushed to meet her. "Kellie! We were starting to worry, everybody else has been back for ages! Did you get lost or—" He broke off, spotting Lord Owen standing behind her. His hand went to his dagger hilt. "And who's this?"
Kellie tried to tell him with her eyes that he could take his hand off his knife. "This is Lord Owen of Jesslaw, a friend of my parents. He found me after I'd shot this duck—" She gestured toward the fowl hanging from her belt. Pathom's eyes went comically wide. "—and said he wanted to see the pages' training camp for himself."
"Owen?" came the training master's voice, tinged with disbelief. "Owen, it is you! What are you doing all the way out here?"
"Merric!" Owen responded, his voice filled with excitement. "Margarry wanted to visit her father for a bit, and so we're at Cavall for the summer. I happened upon this young lady making a fine shot at her duck, and thought I'd come see what you're about." The two men clapped each other on the back, and stepped back.
Kellie set to dressing her duck and rabbit, after handing the vegetables she'd foraged to Cas to begin drying. She waved her hands in front of her, annoyed, as down began to float through the air, then sneezed when one of them tickled her nose.
Lord Owen joined them for supper that night. He amused the pages by the fire by telling them stories of his own time as a page, and gave a—somewhat exaggerated, Kellie thought—rendition of watching Kellie make her shot earlier today. Rowan leaned over and elbowed her in the ribs. When she looked over at him curiously, she saw his eyes were shining in delight. "How is it you know everybody? He has such wonderful stories!"
Kellie felt herself blush, grateful that the darkness concealed it. In a low voice, so as not to interrupt the tale that Owen had just launched into, she murmured, "My papa and mama have a wide circle of friends, mostly the people they were pages with. Papa, Aunt Kel, Sir Merric, Lord Owen, the Crown Prince…" She considered. "Faleron of King's Reach, Sir Merric's cousin, and my uncle Balduin of Disart—the one who took Mae as a squire…" There were more, but Kellie had just named some of the most popular young knights in Tortall. "Mama and Crown Princess Shinkokami too, once they arrived in Tortall. I grew up with them visiting Queenscove often."
"That's enough chatter!" Sir Merric called. "Bed, now! We've got a long day of lessons ahead of us tomorrow."
Kellie found her way to her bedroll and laid it out, keeping an eye on the adults. Sir Merric didn't show any signs of turning in anytime soon, and Lady Fianola and the Shang warriors all looked disinclined to move as well. Kellie heard the training master ask Owen if he'd care for a spare hammock, which the young knight cheerfully accepted, and strode a few yards away to string the hammock between two sturdy trees.
Closing her eyes, Kellie listened to the nighttime sounds. The soft peeping of frogs and chirping of crickets, the crackling of the fire, and the quiet murmuring of the adults, along with the breathing of her friends from nearby, was soon enough to lull her into a dreamless sleep.
xxxxx
Kellie's poor mapmaking skills had not improved overmuch when the pages were all set to the exercise again. She'd been assigned to the north, along with Jameson, Pathom, and—to her surprise and suspicion—Terrell haMinch. She eyed the mousy boy warily as they walked.
Jameson and Pathom were regarding him the same way, causing the boy to hunch his shoulders and stare back at them, wide-eyed.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the camp, Pathom, never one to mince words, asked Terrell directly, "Are you going to cause trouble for us out here? Sabotage our work, or some such?"
Terrell shook his head frantically.
"I seem to recall that you addressed me as a 'dung-licker' the last time we spoke," Kellie informed him tartly, not afraid of what he might do to her with Jameson and Pathom here. She was startled to find that he was no taller than she was herself. Had she really let this slip of a boy call her awful names all year?
"You see, Terrell, I don't take it well when my friends are insulted and attacked for no reason," Pathom went on. "You hang around Sydrian and Avan so much, it's a wonder you haven't done any more than calling people rude things."
Terrell continued shaking his head, appearing rather desperate, and squeaked something.
"What was that?" Jameson asked politely, leaning forward.
"They made me do it," Terrell mumbled. "Sydrian, Avan… I don't like them, and I don't like saying the things I say." His words came faster and faster. "Sydrian'll thrash me if I don't—he's done it before—but he's an awful bully and I don't want to be like him!"
Kellie regarded the gangly boy with renewed interest. She hadn't considered that Terrell might be unhappy about the things he did.
"What are you saying?" Jameson countered, his eyes narrowed. "You think we'll believe you've had a change of heart? You're just trying to save your own skin."
"No!" Terrell burst out, in a louder tone than Kellie had ever heard from him. "I hate Sydrian—when we were younger he used to shove my face in the mud every time his family visited, and he would pinch my arms and pull my hair. He's a terrible person! Nobody else offered to sponsor me as a first year and he's my cousin so no one even questioned it, then he said he'd thrash me hard if I didn't join in with him and Avan. By then you all thought I was a bully too just because I spent time with them, and I didn't think any of you would believe me if I told you it wasn't so." Red-faced, he took deep gulps of air, shrinking in on himself as Kellie, Pathom, and Jameson all stared.
"Will you give us a moment?" Kellie inquired, trying her best to not let her voice waver.
Terrell nodded, still trying to catch his breath after his tirade.
Pathom, with his long legs, led the way off to where they could all see Terrell, but he wouldn't be able to hear them if they spoke quietly. "Do you believe him?" he asked.
Kellie considered. She could see Jameson doing the same. "I think so," she murmured. "He's never laid a hand on me outside the practice courts, and his insults aren't even all that creative." In truth, dung-licker was probably the worst of them, and as Kellie thought through her interactions with Terrell through the year, she realized he hadn't even called her names very often.
"It's true that we never really gave him a chance," Jameson admitted, a bit shamefaced. "We lumped him in with Sydrian—but he's right that nobody else offered to sponsor him. If he was trying to avoid a thrashing, well. I hardly blame him."
Pathom nodded. "I agree. What now? We can protect him if need be, but if he's a very good liar and he's making this all up—"
"Then we'll be the ones to thrash him in that case," Jameson offered. "But I don't think he is. Sydrian's bigger and older, and he has Avan to back him up. And that's just the sort of thing Sydrian would do, too—threaten a first-year to go along with him. I can't believe I never thought about it before."
Pathom nodded. "All right then, let's go back."
He led the way once more back to Terrell.
"Here's how things are going to go," Jameson began, not wasting any time. "We'll put it about that you're one of us now. If Sydrian wants to thrash you, he'll have to go through us—all of us, not just the three of us here. He'll be gone in a year, I think we can keep you from harm that long. If he does anything to you, tell one of us, and we'll deal with him."
"But," Pathom continued, leaning forward menacingly, "If we find you've lied to us, it won't be Sydrian you'll have to worry about, understand?"
Terrell nodded frantically. "I understand. I promise I won't let you down."
"Good. See that you don't," Jameson ordered. "Now, let's hurry and get to our maps so we don't end up with punishment work for being late!"
"I'd almost forgotten that's what we were out here for," Kellie mumbled, patting the front of her tunic. Her parchment and charcoal were still there. "I'd almost rather fight Sydrian than work on a map. At least I could dump him on his behind. If only I could do the same to this assignment."
Terrell offered her a shaky grin. The four of the, walked in companionable silence as they picked their way around the boggy area in between the camp and their target, a tall oak tree.
Once they reached it, Jameson took a look up into the branches before nodding solemnly. "All right, we're meant to map the area from above, right?" Kellie nodded. "Then up we go, I suppose." He grinned crookedly at his companions. "Care to make a wager? First one done gets the others' desserts first day of training in September."
Kellie grinned back, appreciating her friend's subtle humor. "Deal."
Pathom agreed, and so did Terrell, looking a bit hesitant. They all shook on it, and Pathom began boosting them up into the tree one by one. Kellie pulled herself from one branch to the next, until she decided she was high enough to make a start. With a sigh, she pulled the charcoal and parchment from her tunic and began working.
The occasional remark from one of the other boys was the only thing to break the silence, along with the rasp of the charcoal. Kellie didn't know what area they were drawing—this part of the forest bordered a handful of different fiefs—but she did her best. Even with her poor mapmaking skills, she managed to produce a result that wasn't awful.
A loud whoop came from Pathom. "I'm finished with my map! How about the rest of you?" The next moment he yelped. "Ow!"
Kellie looked up from her work just in time to see Jameson fling another acorn at Pathom. The taller boy managed to dodge it this time. A short but heated war followed between the two, both of them hooting with laughter by the time they ran out of easily accessible ammunition, and Kellie briefly joined in the fun by throwing an acorn at Pathom at he reached, defenseless, to pluck one for himself. "I suppose it's good we're not meant to be hunting for our supper," she remarked, "because we've probably just scared off all the game."
All three of the older boys grinned at her joke.
"My map is done," Terrell offered a few minutes later, just as Kellie was giving the area a final look over to make sure she hadn't missed anything important. She glanced over at him, perched on the crook of a branch, and hummed in response.
"I'm finished as well," she murmured, folding up her parchment with the utmost care so as not to smudge the charcoal. "Are you nearly done, Jameson?"
"Very nearly," the studious boy replied, still marking his own parchment as he spoke. "Won't take but a little longer."
"You'd be finished already if you hadn't decided to declare war by acorn on me!" Pathom shouted from the ground, where he was lounging exaggeratedly on a flat rock.
"And you're lucky I'm out of acorns, else I'd declare another!" Jameson called back roundly, without missing a beat.
"You've been spending too much time around Rowan," Pathom informed his friend. "His Player's humor is catching!"
"I'm hungry enough to eat all of that duck Cas brought down this morning," Kellie interjected, wanting to avoid another battle between her friends. "We should start back toward camp, shouldn't we? Look how late it is." She nodded toward the sun, noticeably lower in the sky than it had been when they started.
"Most likely," Pathom agreed, as Kellie began to lower herself from the tree. Once her feet were back on the ground, he clapped her on the back with a grin.
Terrell and Jameson, the latter finished with his own map at last, followed behind her, Terrell scaling the trunk like a monkey, while Jameson simply dropped from branch to branch until he was low enough to jump down. Chattering on at length, the four of them began the trek back to camp.
So focused was Kellie on the conversation, that she didn't see the lattice on the ground, covered in dead leaves and twigs, in time. Kellie let out a scream as she felt herself lifted abruptly into the air. The three boys looked startled, letting out yelps of surprise.
Spidren trap, Kellie thought, the gray-green webbing surrounding her giving away the culprit. The trap swayed alarmingly back and forth as she wrenched her knife from her belt and began sawing at the webs, trying to free herself. Her knife was dull; she cursed in three languages as she attempted to slice at the ropes that kept her prisoner.
"Kellie!" shouted Pathom from below, sheer panic in his voice. "Just stay there, I'll get you out! It won't take—" He choked off, eyes bulging, and Kellie turned her head upward to see what had caught his attention.
A huge spidren was approaching from above, its razor-sharp teeth on display as it grinned. Jameson let out a strangled-sounding yell.
"Caught some supper, I did," the spidren taunted. "I knew laying a trap would be handy." It peered at her, poking its hairy leg at her arm; Kellie shrank away from it. "Though you're just a little morsel. Maybe I'll have to catch the others too, for a more satisfying meal."
"Run, all of you!" Kellie screamed, suddenly fearing for her friends' lives more than her own. "Get out of here, run away!"
To their credit, the older boys all hesitated, even Terrell. "What about you?!" Jameson yelled back. "We can't just leave you!"
"I'll be fine!" Kellie screamed, still sawing at the webs with her belt knife, her actions now fueled by desperation. "Just go, get Sir Merric and the others and tell them what's happened!"
The boys didn't waste any more time, dashing off into the brush. The spidren hissed in disappointment. "Hmph. One of them would have made a much better meal, but I suppose you'll do." It bared its teeth at her again, leering very close to her face.
The rope she'd been working on snapped; Kellie took advantage of having her knife free to jab it into the monster's face, and was pleased when she managed to score a deep scratch on its human cheek. It reared back as black ichor welled up, hissing in pain and anger, the wound not enough to do anything more than annoy it. "Oh, you'll pay for that, girlie," it growled, its eyes narrowing. "I'll use your skeleton to decorate my lair!"
A stick flew in and hit the spidren in one of its legs, causing it to jerk in surprise, yowling like an angry cat. Kellie took advantage of its momentary distraction, jabbing at its face once more. Somewhere in her panic-stricken mind it occurred to her that she would never be able to kill a spidren with nothing but her dull belt knife, and so she returned to hacking at the webs confining her. If she could get out, she could get away—her prison was only about ten feet off the ground. She didn't know which of the boys had ignored her orders to run and had stayed behind to throw sticks and rocks at the spidren, but she did know that falling from this height wouldn't kill her. It would only take severing another few webs to create an opening large enough for her to escape. One of the few advantages of being scrawny, Kellie thought to herself with grim humor.
"You won't escape!" the spidren hissed, rearing up to clear its spinneret. "If you're going to be trying that, I'll just wrap you up!"
Kellie desperately aimed her knife upward again, in an attempt to distract it long enough to free herself. She was somewhat startled when her blade met resistance, but a pained screech informed her that she'd hit her target, much more seriously this time. Kellie shrieked in pain herself, as spidren blood spilled onto her hands, but she couldn't let up, she couldn't, not if she wanted to get out of this alive.
A loud whiz was followed by several thunk sounds, and the spidren went limp. Kellie stared up at its body, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It took her several seconds to process that the sticks impaling its body were not actually sticks but arrows, arrows that had just shot it dead.
Kellie looked down, finding Sir Merric, Lady Knight Fianola, and the rest of the pages clustered around her. Sir Merric began barking orders. Allora Halder scaled up the tree that Kellie's prison was dangling from, knocked the dead spidren away, and carefully lowered her to the ground, where she was greeted with the web being cut away, a salve being spread on her burned hands, and a quick check over for more injuries.
Kellie endured the whole ordeal with a sort of detached puzzlement, and finally, finally, fell into an exhausted slumber.
You have no idea how long I've been looking forward to this chapter. And hey—less of a gap between updates this time! I'm proud of myself. And of Kellie. She's cool under pressure (as we've just discovered) in a way I wish I was.
I SWEAR MY GOAL IS TO HAVE THE NEXT CHAPTER UP BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
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