The temperature is indescribably cold as we near the edges of the fourth and hardest sector. I feel I’m never out of my coat for long and spend most of my time in the dining hall where fireplaces line the walls. I am finally able to take my wrist out of the splint. There is still some swelling around the joint, but all of the bruising is gone and I can move my fingers and elbow easily, even though the wrist is still stiff. It’s a great day. The second best since I have been on Glacium. My birthday held first place.
Sitting by one of the fires, I wait for Macy to finish her breakfast. Seeing she is done I make my move. I have about five minutes. She usually talks to the others a little before leaving.
I lead my guards on a quick dance around the lower floors and sprint to the second floor and hide inside a smaller hall which branches off the main passage on this level. She comes up the stairs slowly, she must have trouble with one of her joints. She looks around thirty-five or so, but it is hard to tell. She looks like she’s had a hard life.
It is a simple matter to follow her to the room she usually shares with Blaine. She doesn’t leave again. I retreat to my room, letting my guards find me. The next step will be much harder.
With my wrist out of the splint, I use the rest of the morning to train in my room, jumping on and off the seat at the end of my bed and practicing maneuverers from the top of the stone columns around the bed. I would love to train with the guards here, but mentioning my skill is an impossibility, especially when I’m just starting to feel more accepted. Besides, the idea of a female fighting would be appalling. Kaura always gets excited by my training and I’ve had to train her to stay away from where I workout after I nearly landed on her head.
When I had first found the training yard here, a large group of females had been watching. I had joined them for a few days, thinking they were interested in the actual training. But when the King had joined the training one afternoon and the number of females doubled, followed by one of the younger ladies fainting when he removed his tunic, I realised this was not the case.
After lunch, Fiona mentions that she wants to go out to the training yard or the barracks, as they call them, to watch Sanjay train. Every male in the castle must do a mandatory amount of practice with the full-time watchmen every week. A group of us trail down to the barracks and I nearly fall over when I realise what they are doing.
They are practising archery.
I push past Jacqueline to get a closer look, but cannot see the arrows from here. There is only the thud as the arrows hit the targets - not that many of them are. I scrunch my eyes closed, remembering the squelching sound as the arrow had parted the skin and muscle of Kedrick’s chest.
I need to get closer to them.
The women are looking down from the stone walkway which sits on top of the walls enclosing the training yard. They stand above and behind the men shooting the arrows, so they don’t get hit. Like our own training yard on Osolis, there are large stairways down each side of a massive cleared space for the watchmen to spar in or go through drills.
The targets are down the far end of the yard.
Malir shouts and the shooting halts while a small figure runs up the far steps to the walkway above the targets. He comes back down the stairs into the yard with an armful of arrows which have completely missed the targets. I hear the clatter as he unloads them behind the archers.
“Does Jovan ever miss?” A younger girl sighs as the watchmen resume their practice. I roll my eyes and shift onto the balls of my feet.
When the next shout goes up, I’m ready. I sprint down the walkway.
“Olina, what are you doing?” Jacqueline shouts behind me. There is no way to be subtle, I’m going for speed. I fly over the stone walkway towards the fallen arrows, my veil flattens to my face. I need to see those arrows.
I skid around the wet stone corner and hurry forward looking for an arrow.
I see the glint of an arrow head and reach out for it, bringing it close to my face. The wood is a light colour and it does not bend at all, unlike the arrow in my boot.
I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach. It is not the same.
But it has to be. I grab another arrow and test it only to get the same result. I let the arrow fall out of my hand and roll back to the ground as footsteps sound to my left.
“What are you doing up here?”
I look up at King Jovan. I am so disappointed by my discovery, I can’t speak. Shaking my head, I sit down with my back to the side of the walkway.
“You were looking at our arrows. Why?” he asks, walking closer.
I shrug. “Just interested.”
“I’m sure. Tell me,” he says, and his voice is less harsh. I tilt my head to look at him. I’m sure he has already guessed what I was doing.
“I was seeing if it was the same as the arrow…that killed Kedrick,” I say and hold my breath.
“You have been withholding information, I see. And you think a Bruma did it,” he says, his voice heavy with doubt.
“The arrow was not a Solati arrow,” I say. “Our arrows are always made of Kaur, the wood is black. The wood on the arrow was not black, but it is not like this light, strong wood either,” I say.
“Spruce,” the King offers distractedly. It must be the name of the wood. He crouches forward and sits down beside me. “If it was not a Solati…then who?” I do not think he is talking to me. I stay silent.
“Do you have the arrow?” he asks, looking down at me.
“No,” I lie straight away. He nods and looks forward again.
“What do you think of the men’s shooting?” he asks, interrupting my disappointed thoughts.
“Terrible,” I say.
The King startles me by laughing. “It’s true. We don’t usually use arrows here, the wind is too strong. But we need to learn in case…” He shrugs and gets to his feet.
“In case you need to shoot my family and friends?” I say. He doesn’t need to know I only have two friends.
He doesn’t answer.
“Would you like to come down and shoot?” he asks. I look up at him as I get to my feet and brush off my trousers. Why is he asking me to go down there?
“I cannot shoot,” I say.
“Why?”
I grip the edge of the veil and wave it slightly. “I would need to be able to see to do so.”
“Huh.” He moves to the other wall of the walkway and looks down over the training yard. “How far can you see?” My stomach twists in warning. But I ignore it.
“I can see most of you from here. I can see the shape of the castle and the shape of the women over there. The light is good,” I reply.
“That’s all?” He seems stunned. “What about the weaponry over there?”
“No.”
“That arrow on the ground to your left?”
I glance to my left. “No.”
The King holds up a hand to Malir’s enquiring shout. “How do you do anything? Especially in the dark. How do you even know our shooting is terrible?” he asks.
I move up next to him. “I get by,” I say with a bite. He grins. “And I know because I can hear the sound of the bowstrings as they loose an arrow and then the thud of the arrow hitting the target. There are many more sounds of bowstrings being releasing than there are of the arrows hitting the target.”
I pause. “I can also tell you are worried about something. You are angling your body, so I cannot see much of the yard.” I hesitate. “Be assured, nothing I see here will get back to my mother.”
“You read minds now?” I almost laugh as he vocalises the thought I have had several times about him.
He continues. “I have no qualms of you watching. If you were male I might have some objection.” Angry heat floods my cheeks at his comment. What an ignorant thing to say.
“If you didn’t take the arrow, then how did you see it that night?” he asks, watching for my reaction.
Oops, that’s what the warning twinge in my stomach had been about. “My veil was not on the whole time,” I say in a curt voice.
He stares at me for a few moments and then turns towards the stairs leading back to the yard. “I will make some enquiries about the arrow,” he says over his shoulder.
My run down the walkway is all the women can talk of for the rest of the day. The story has changed in the re-telling. Now, I supposedly ran behind the targets while the arrows were still being loosed. I fob off their inquiries by saying I thought Kaura had been down there. Jacky doesn’t buy it for a second. I’m eager to escape her accusing eyes and get to my room. I don’t know how Roman does it.
I’m drifting in a dreamless sleep when I become aware of a hush outside of my bedroom door. I roll over and listen. If Jovan were beating his guards again it would be much louder. I start fading back into sleep. I love this bed.
The door crashes open and rebounds off the stone wall behind it.
I jump and clamber to my feet, trying to get my balance in the middle of the soft-heaped bed. I can’t see anything, but my ears pick up footsteps, three sets of them. I need time for my eyes to adjust enough to see their outlines.
“Who are you?” I say.
“None of your fucking business,” a deep voice answers from in front of me. The voice belongs to a large man, the sound coming level at me across the bed. There is a quiet laugh in response to the thug’s comment further to my left. The sound comes from lower down, but I cannot guess anything else from this second man, except that his breathing is heavy. He is unlikely to be fast.
Light footsteps patter back to the door, it is shut and a chair dragged over to it, I assume to keep out unwanted interruptions. These footsteps belong to a smaller man or a very good fighter.
I can see the silhouettes of the two men closest to me now. I strike while the three are separated. Running over furs, I jump.
My foot connects with the tallest man’s nose. I hear a satisfying crunch.
The rug under my feet absorbs my landing, taking all sound from it.
The heavy breather swings at me and I push the blow over my head with both arms, whipping my left fist back to then jab him in the throat. My wrist complains at the impact.
I return to the first while the heavy breather now adds a noisy wheezing sound to his inhalation.
The third man has returned from the door, but he lingers at the front of the bed. He is small. Maybe a boy.
Kaura barks and growls from her box. I’m glad she can’t get out.
I use my left knee to land a blow between the tall man’s legs and deliver a sharp uppercut which snaps his head back. Loud wheezing sounds behind me, I twist back, kicking my right heel into his fleshy stomach, smiling as he crashes into the wall, gagging now.
Two down. I start towards the skinny man and stop, my heart in my mouth.
He holds a whining, squirming body in his hands.
“One more step Solati whore, and the dog gets a slit throat,” a cruel voice rings out. It is a man after all, not a boy.
“It would be a shame if you killed your puppy by being difficult,” he continues. I can almost imagine a twisted sneer on his face from the tone of his voice.
There is a dull thudding in my ears, I sense the other two retrieving themselves from the ground behind me. I watch Kaura struggle and know what I will do. She has brought me so much happiness. I could not bear it if she died this way.
My hands drop to my sides in defeat and I nod. I am powerless.
I release my breath when the small man places Kaura back in her box. He remains close to her though, probably expecting me to attack and rightly so. This man is obviously the only one of the three who has some intelligence. He nods behind me and with no warning there is a crashing blow to the side of my head. Black patches spot my vision.
Staggering to the side, I struggle to regain my balance. Blinking in slow motion. Before I can fully stand, there is a crushing sensation in my ribs. I hit the ground, the breath knocked from me, fire in my side. They kick my lower back and I arch backwards, unable to decide between protecting my back or my ribs.
“That’s where a good slut should be. On her back.” The men laugh together over my head.
I try to lessen their blows. I hold the cloth of my veil between my teeth, to keep it down. They don’t seem to care what my face looks like, they just seem intent on getting the job done. In fact, I wonder if they prefer my veil on. Maybe it is easier to beat someone to death when their face is covered.
My eyes dart to their faces when they get close to me, I do not recognise them from the castle, but I commit their features to memory. If they do not kill me, I will be hunting them down.
My vision starts to cloud when a kick cracks my head to the side, only slightly dampened as I move in the direction with the blow. I know I will lose consciousness soon. My attempts to block and divert the worst blows become weaker. My hands drop uselessly to cover my head. I hear dull smacking thuds as they connect blows with my body. I no longer feel them though. It is like I am a spectator watching my death.
“Enough,” the skinny man says from far away
There is another dull thud, my body is rolled by another kick to my side.
“Enough, you fucking idiot. He said to beat her nearly to death, not to kill her.” The man’s voice is at the other end of a long tunnel.
I fade in.
“She isn’t so bad looking. Even with the blood.”
“For fuck’s sake Nam, put it away. We don’t have time for you to get your dick wet.”
I fade out.