Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (47 page)

Kollis, trying to control his voice, asked how
anyone could dare make such a statement.

Peashot replied that he was surprised anyone could
do otherwise. In the argument that followed, he managed to offend almost
everyone in the room with his forthright and tactless evaluations of their
beliefs.

Kollis, while he believed in many obscure things, did
not believe in the cane. Before the class was done, Peashot succeeded in
converting him.

As the apprentices were required to take partners to the dinners
and learn how to conduct themselves in different cultures, they saw the girls
from the medical class regularly. Delwyn caused something of a stir when she
partnered Lorrimer for the first time, but it was Ilona who made them stumble
and stutter and knot their tongues when asking her to partner them. She was
growing prettier by the day. The boys were all noticing, and not just the boys
from their class. Heads were turning wherever she went. It gave Aedan an oddly
protective feeling. He had wanted to walk with her several times, but the words
always got stuck when she smiled at him – and she had smiled at him often since
the night of the gang run-in. They had shared something special, something not
forgotten. Gone was the cold disregard of those early days. Now that she had
distanced herself from Malik’s poisonous accusations, Aedan was finding her to
be a much nicer girl.

By the end of the year, Murn had grown so big that Aedan had
to stand on the fence to saddle him. His coal coat rippled with eager young
muscle, and though he still had the slender form of a growing horse, he was
already the most impressive occupant of the stables. The only other person who
dared enter the paddock with Aedan was Liru, so Aedan asked if she would be
prepared to take the lead rope on his first attempt to ride.

He waited until midday when Murn was normally a
shade less spirited, tacked him, gave the lead rope to Liru, and climbed
gingerly up, up, and onto the saddle. Murn bent his neck around and gave Aedan
a good inspection. His ears flicked slightly and he looked back at Liru.

Aedan gulped.

But these were two people Murn liked, so he
allowed himself to be guided in a circle, his long steps requiring Liru to move
very fast to avoid having her heels trod on.

The plan fell apart when Murn caught the scent of
something that belonged to him in one of Liru’s pockets. She had been nervous
to begin with, and when the huge muzzle pushed against her and began to dig,
her self-confidence fled. Murn discovered the pocket; his efforts doubled and
Liru sped up until she was running for the fence. Aedan had to endure a high
speed trot. It ended at the gate with an abrupt halt that spat him from the
saddle and dropped him a long, long way down to the ground.

Murn seemed confused and nosed him until he got up
laughing and rubbing his bruised hip.

“You’ve got something edible in your pocket
haven’t you?” he said to Liru.

Liru found the carrot and looked very embarrassed.
Murn eased her embarrassment by snatching it away and making it disappear.

Things began to improve, but very slowly. It wasn’t
that Murn was a slow learner; it was that he was still very much a young storm
of an animal, a very big, fast and powerful storm. Aedan knew he was not rider
enough for such a horse. Not yet.

Lorrimer had worked hard on his literacy. His lantern
usually burned as long as Aedan’s, and the two of them often studied after the rest
of the dorm had sunk into darkness. As the examinations approached, his dedication
infected all around him, except Aedan who was already driven, and Vayle who had
no need to be – information apparently attached itself to this boy’s mind like
burrs to expensive clothing.

The new languages, Sulese in particular, provided some good
entertainment owing to its unusual structure. It was a vastly different
language to any of the others learned thus far. Towards the end of the year, Giddard
presented them with a collection of Sulese memorabilia and commentaries. Loosely
translated, some of them would have read:

“The grass sparkled with dew droppings.”

Warton, I am not sure if that is intended as a
beautiful or a horrible image.

“I was tort to extinguish riyt from rong.”

Bede, apparently not.

“Sulese are always inviting you to go for dinner
to get murdered.”

Kian, it would seem from this that Sulese are enthusiastically
hospitable, transparent of motive, and not very good at committing murder. All
are grave errors.

“Sulese food on heads with never eat hats.”

Cayde, Sulese order word important very is. It must
learn you.

The year’s final practical assessment took them on a
one month journey through Drumly and Harronville. Here they were required to assess
the level of war-readiness and obtain information and instructions using each
of the four languages they had been taught. On their return they were to
complete a series of tests which included making weapons, hunting for food,
building shelters, tracking and covering tracks, memorising a map, and finally
– the aspect on which the assessment hinged – present a full report translated
into all of the foreign languages studied and an accurately drawn map indicating
their movements.

They were divided into groups of four which were
selected by lot. Aedan found himself with Lorrimer, Kian and Warton.

Both Dunn and Skeet warned the boys to keep to
well-travelled roads unless under guard – as all the wilderness exercises now
required. After Cayde’s experience earlier in the year, there was no need for
anyone to labour the point.

For Aedan, the worries were confirmed when he
arrived at Drumly.

This was the city that overlooked the busiest harbour
on Lake Vallendal. Though it was not even half the size of Castath, its main
wall was thick and a second was under construction. The walls, however had not
protected those whose occupations took them outside.

While mingling with the locals at the harbour
where calm waters lapped against the quay and fishy smells both thrilled and
offended his nose, he began to hear stories of shepherds and farmers abducted
and later found mutilated. The rangers had not believed the signs of animal
maulings. They said the maulings had been faked to cover the work of torturers
– Fenn scouts seeking information. From then on, Aedan looked at the fringes of
woodland as he had once looked at Nymliss on his last night at Badgerfields.

They travelled from there with a ranger and a
guard of six soldiers. After a two-day ride along the shores of Lake Vallendal,
they turned inland and moved more cautiously, leaving the winding road whenever
it made a dangerous, exposed approach to cover.

Harronville was smaller than Drumly, more of a
large village between forested hills. For defence it had only stockades of
sharpened tree trunks, but the locals had dug a moat and embankments that would
slow an attack hopefully long enough for aid to arrive from Castath. Huge
signal pyres, of course, stood ready.

Aedan was both impressed and concerned by the
preparations he saw. Though the spiked wall told of immense labour by few, in
the back of his mind was a hard reality. The Fenn army was not a rabble of
bandits that would be thwarted by a wooden stockade; it was a colossal and efficient
machine of destruction and these defences would be torn apart within three
hours. But even if the defences could hold for three days, he knew that
Burkhart would not risk his city by sending aid. Harronville, if attacked,
would make its stand alone, and it would fall alone.

The others agreed with his observations. Though
their report was anything but reassuring, their assessments were considered
excellent.

And with this, their second year was complete.

–––

Aedan’s dedication had yielded impressive results. It
was no secret that he was doing well. By the beginning of his third year, his
reputation was beginning to glow a little, but nothing like his flushed cheeks
when the most dazzling pair of eyes began locking with his. Those few held glances
had given him a new perspective on things. Previously, the academy had been an
august monument to invaluable knowledge founded on ancient and immovable rock.
Now all that was a cloudy insignificance floating in a dizzy orbit around an
epicentre that was Ilona …

Everything had been redefined, and everything had
grown beautiful. Birds sang of this budding love, and flowers grew only to be
plucked for her – though he hadn’t the nerve to do any more than pluck them,
and so he left a colourful trail of discarded petals wherever he walked. He found
himself thinking of her, imagining shining moments like her adoring laughter in
response to one of his many witty remarks. Her ringing voice would cause the
robins to faint and topple from their branches and butterflies to explode with
happiness – joyful little puffs that would sprinkle the air with a soft haze as
she leaned forward and –

“Aedan!”

The vision vanished with a sudden ethereal rip. He
found himself sitting near the front of a tense and silent class. Skeet looked
dangerous. He always looked dangerous, but this time the danger was focussed.

“When one of my students grins like a lovesick
gargoyle at the calculations required to balance fulcrum shear with lever-arm
length, I am moved to suspicion. Were you paying attention at all?”

“Yes … uh, yes … Master Skeet,” Aedan stammered.

“Good, then you can complete the design of our improvised
catapult.” He handed Aedan the chalk and walked to the back of the class.

Aedan shuffled to the board, sensing the weight of
forty eyes on his back. The rough catapult design had been sketched, the
materials listed, but all of them were poor choices.

“Why don’t we just use steel for the axle?” he
asked, and immediately wished he had not spoken the thought as the class
erupted in laughter. The poor materials were probably the whole point of the
exercise.

He looked back at the sketch, stared with
deepening incomprehension, made some burbling noises and turned red. After an
age of infamy, Skeet sent him to his chair with an icy warning.

This episode was quite out of character for Aedan.
His friends could get no straight answer from him, but the mystery was solved
quickly enough. Later that day, a few of the boys were seated on the tiered benches
that faced one of the twenty-foot crindo boards. Six of their classmates had
just finished a game and were dragging the enormous pieces back to their
starting arrangement before leaving. Aedan and his friends remained, drinking
in the last of the afternoon before their evening training session. Ilona and
three of her friends settled down across from them on the other side of the
board.

Aedan found himself laughing the loudest,
interjecting the most often, and glancing constantly over to the other side of
the crindo square. At one point, his glance was rewarded. His face flushed. He
heard only bits of the next joke and burst into uproarious laughter a beat
before Vayle arrived at the punch line. There were a few curious glances. Peashot
frowned openly, but Hadley had followed Aedan’s darting eyes and was now
nursing a half grin.

The air cooled and began to nip. The girls left,
all but Ilona, who remained on the bench, writing something on a sheet of
paper. Soon Lorrimer declared it was time to head in. The boys rose and turned
towards their wing. Hadley stood in Aedan’s way.

“You think she’s sitting there by herself because
she likes the cold? I’ve seen you two exchanging looks.”

Aedan was too surprised by Hadley’s words and too
terrified by their glorious implication to react.

“Go talk to her,” Hadley said.

“No! Hadley, no! I – I can’t!”

“Fine. Then I’m going to tell her that you would
rather be early for Dun than spend time with her.” He turned to Ilona, but Aedan
caught his arm in a ferocious grip.

“I can’t Hadley!” His voice was a frantic whisper.
“It doesn’t just work like that. I have to think about things, get it all
sorted out first. You know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean – it’s the same as
Lorrimer standing all morning at the jumping platform over the dam. Remember
how we helped him?”

“No Hadley, don’t do it! Please don’t –”

“Hey Ilona,” Hadley called. “We’re heading in. Do
you mind taking care of Aedan for a bit? See that he’s safe and all that?”

Ilona looked up from her writing and laughed. Aedan’s
vision swam. Sparrows and crickets burst into chorus and a few stars fell from
the sky. She patted the bench beside her and glanced at him.

The bench was twenty yards away. He wished it were
twenty miles. Oh help. He looked up, tried to swallow, but the dryness caught
in his throat and he almost gagged as Ilona smiled. He staggered forward
through something between a fog of bliss and a gauntlet of terror, knees all
but collapsing as he dropped down beside her. A glance revealed that Hadley had
gone.

Ilona shifted in her seat, put her elbow on the
backrest and faced him. A confident grin toyed with the edges of her mouth. “I
wrote you something,” she said, reaching forward and slipping a folded note
into Aedan’s shirt pocket. “Don’t read it until lights are out and everyone
else is asleep. It’s our secret.”

She stood and Aedan did likewise, lifting his
heels a little to reduce the disparity in height.

“You don’t need to be frightened,” she said,
smiling.

“I’m n-not,” he managed with a voice that quivered
its way out between rattling teeth.

Ilona laughed, twirled around, and sprang away
with graceful strides. “Our secret, remember,” she called back over her
shoulder.

Aedan was still too overcome with volcanic emotions
to be angry with himself over a lack of self-possession. And anyway, he must
have done rather well considering she smiled and laughed and gave him a letter.