Chapter 18
Eleanor found a position amongst the rocks where she was thoroughly concealed, but with a good view across to the mouth of the caves. The students wouldn’t be arriving until the next night so she had plenty of time to settle herself and ensure she was familiar with every stone of her surroundings. Then, assuming they were right to expect an ambush, the fun would start. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d force her plans to fruition if the ambush didn’t materialise, but she didn’t really doubt that it would. Everyone was just so predictable.
She’d just decided she was satisfied with her vantage point when Mack and Stefan arrived, their horses heavily laden with packs that she assumed contained the weapons, food, and medicines she’d asked for. She ran down the slope to meet them, taking a rocky path between the trees so as to minimise the tracks she left.
“Thanks for this,” she said, moving to help them to unburden the horses. “Let’s make sure no sneaky Shadows have come early, and then we can move everything inside the caves.”
They stepped warily into the cave mouth, looking around for any signs of disturbance. But the subtle markers they’d left when the Association moved out were all still in place; clearly no-one had been here since they’d left. Nevertheless, they kept their knives out until they’d gone over the main cavern from top to bottom.
Then they hefted the packs inside, and Mack started to cut the bindings while Stefan led the horses through to the area they’d previously used for stabling.
“Here, this is the kit Daniel sent,” Mack said, passing across a small but surprisingly heavy case. “It’s strange to be back in these caves again, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t spend that much time here.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t. Too busy pretending to be a Shadow.”
Eleanor opened the case and inspected the contents. Daniel had tied neatly-written labels around the neck of every bottle and jar, so she wouldn’t have to think too hard. He’d sent a box of prepared woundwort poultices, a wide-necked jar of topical ointment for lesser scratches, six bottles of poppy tea, a jar of arnica lotion, more woundwort leaves, honey, and alcohol for cleaning out wounds. And then there was a large bottle labelled ‘Strengthening Tonic,’ which she guessed was his polite way of saying ‘Bull Testicle Extract.’
“Any bandages?” she asked Mack, who himself was busily sorting food and weaponry into neat piles on the ground.
“Somewhere,” he said. “I haven’t got to them yet.”
“As long as they’re somewhere.” She arranged the jars again and shut the case. “I’m taking this up to the watchtower, do you want to bring the food? You and Stefan can wait up there while the kids defend themselves, I don’t want them to know we’re here.”
Mack straightened, balancing a stack of food parcels in his arms. “You’re sure of this ambush, then?” he asked as he followed her to the back of the cave.
“They won’t miss this opportunity,” Eleanor said. She turned into a narrow passageway and started up the steep staircase that was carved into the rock. It was tight enough that her elbows brushed the walls, the rough surface catching at her sleeves as she climbed. “I want you two up here to keep an eye on things. If the kids get themselves in trouble and don’t realise they can fall back inside the caves, you can start shooting. You’ve brought the crossbows, haven’t you?”
“Just as you said,” Mack agreed.
“Right. But you only get involved if they’re really in danger. I want it to feel real.”
“Sure, I get it.”
The long chamber they called the watchtower was above the mouth of the cave, and featured half a dozen arrow-slits that had been chipped out of the face of the cliff. From the outside, they could have been natural cracks, and were in any case mostly concealed by the thick creepers which grew across the rock. But from within, they gave a perfect aspect across the clearing.
Eleanor set the medicine case down against the back wall, and Mack deposited his parcels alongside.
“We brought more than this,” he said, considering the small pile. “It must be in the other packs, but it’s all more of the same. Biscuits and saltfish and dried fruit.”
Eleanor shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting gourmet dinners.”
After supplying the horses with hay and water, Stefan had continued working through the packs, and they came down the stairs to find him unpacking daggers and throwing knives from their leather rolls. Along with three crossbows, six full quivers, and a few short swords, there was now quite an array of weaponry on the cavern floor.
Mack bent to pick up a large, light bundle and tossed it to Eleanor. “Bandages,” he explained as she caught it.
“Thanks.”
Once they’d moved all the food and blankets up to the watchtower, and hidden most of the weapons in a dark corner of the cavern, they retired to the watchtower with their crossbows. Stefan took the first watch, while Mack and Eleanor tried to get comfortable on the uneven rocky floor.
Mack shook Eleanor awake at sunrise, and after a quick breakfast she returned outside to her viewpoint in the forest. She spent the daylight studying every detail her eyes could pick out in the clearing below. She was constantly alert for any signs of movement, but she saw nothing except the occasional bird fluttering between the trees. Then again, she wouldn’t have expected to see the Shadows.
She took out a sheet of parchment and crafted a short message in the basic Venncastle code she’d taught herself from Raf’s school notes:
Change of plans. Don’t let our lads fall out to join attack. More value if they stay with new recruits.
She signed it with a brief and unreadable scrawl; she wanted to give the impression of a message written and sent in haste, and she was relying on the supposed secrecy of the code to vouch for the origin of the message. The reader should, she hoped, be able to think of some appropriate sender whose name fit with the approximate shapes of the squiggle. Satisfied with her work, she tucked the note safely into her pocket for later use.
Then, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, she carved words into the hilts of two wooden daggers, and waited.
The first to arrive, before the moon had even risen, was a tall, thick-set youth with wiry black hair. She recognized him as Simeon, from Dashfort 2.
She aimed the dagger carefully. As he stood there waiting, watching the forest, the wooden blade hit the ground only inches from his feet. He pulled it out of the grass, and she watched the way his eyes flickered as he read the message.
SHOW THIS TO THE OTHERS.
EXPECT AN AMBUSH.
PREPARE TO DEFEND CAVES.
He looked around to see where it had come from, but Eleanor was crouching well out of sight. He moved around until his back was against the rocks, scanning the edge of the forest, now more purposeful in his waiting.
The movement, when it came, was Lukal.
The two young men acknowledged one another with appropriate caution, and though she couldn’t hear what they said she assumed that the greetings they exchanged were the challenges and responses she’d given them.
Simeon beckoned Lukal to come closer and handed him the wooden dagger to read. As they pored over it together, Eleanor fired her second message-dagger into the ground between their feet, making them jump apart and tense until they realised it was another message rather than the start of an attack.
This time the inscription gave more practical help, directing them towards the box of spare throwing knives she’d stashed on a ledge inside the mouth of the cave. Simeon scrambled up to find them, and although he passed a couple of blades down to Lukal, he kept the elevated position and most of the stock for himself.
Richard was the next to arrive, closely followed by Kit, and as each in turn read the message from the first dagger they began to form a human shield around the mouth of the cave.
Eleanor simply waited and watched. So far, it was all going to plan.
Tal and Gaven came into the clearing together, as she?
??d suspected they would. Everything she’d stressed about individual decisions had only pushed them closer together. Well, that was where she wanted them. They were one Venncastle-conditioned unit, so far as she was concerned, and she’d break them together.
She watched them with interest as the dagger was passed across and they read the message together. Tal took a central position in the formation, sword at the ready, while Gaven hovered at the edge. Ready to duck out and join the ambush party, then. That simple positioning gave away more than he could have imagined.
Dan and Aaron arrived a little after sunset, and seemed relieved to find they hadn’t missed their chance. The three who hadn’t appeared, Eleanor assumed, had chosen to take the Imperial route instead. Assuming they’d all gone into the Shadows or the military, they’d be crossing swords soon enough.
As the moon rose high overhead, she wondered when the ambush would strike. Were they expecting her to make the first move? Did they really think she’d march straight into the teeth of an attack? Well, she could wait all night if she had to.
She pulled her old Shadow Corps jacket over her clothes and took out the message she’d written earlier. She could hardly read the Venncastle code herself without her crib sheet – she hoped, despite his years out of the school, that her target wouldn’t have that limitation.
She crept down into the forest, and it didn’t take long for her to spot the grey jackets of the Military Special Corps soldiers crouching in the undergrowth, along with one or two blue-suited Shadows. They were so sure of themselves that they hadn’t even bothered with camouflage. She picked out a young lad in Special Corps uniform, marched up to him, and slid the note into his hand.
“I need you to take this to Ivan,” she said. He nodded and listened, seeing only the uniform, not asking for any proof of her status. “Venncastle have sent word. He’ll understand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t even unfold the paper. She could hardly believe it. If so simple a disguise were so effective it’d be all too easy for her to slit their throats one at a time... but she wouldn’t cheat. She needed this too much.
The youth ran off through the trees, and Eleanor climbed back to a decent vantage point. She’d been gambling that Ivan would be here to command the attack personally, but this was such an opportunity – she’d be amazed if he’d left it to anyone else’s charge. That the soldier hadn’t been fazed by her request suggested she’d been right in her assessment.
The students took turns to sleep in shifts at the mouth of the cave, but they slept with their school knives grasped in their hands. Eleanor didn’t dare to close her eyes for even one brief moment. She wanted them to manage this on their own, but she wouldn’t let them be massacred if they made mistakes. And either Mack or Stefan would be keeping a similar watch from behind the creepers.
The ambush party finally moved as dawn was breaking, and Eleanor shimmied up a nearby tree to get a better view of them. Thirty Specials and half a dozen Shadows suddenly materialized from between the trees, closing in on the boys who still waited at the mouth of the cave. Tal kicked Lukal and Kit awake, and they scrambled hurriedly into position.
As she watched the Imperial forces approach she wondered whether she’d made a mistake. What chance did eight sleep-deprived schoolboys have against an elite military unit? But she’d given them a defensible location, the attackers didn’t have the element of surprise they’d hoped for, and they’d been arrogant enough to send a fairly small force. Besides, she was relying on it being a close fight. If she’d wanted to stack the odds, she could have brought more backup of her own.
The students exchanged puzzled glances, wondering now if this was a test or whether they should strike to kill. She knew just how they were feeling; she’d asked the same questions of Raf in Taraska.
“It’s both this time,” she murmured to herself. “Just because I’m testing you doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
She could only hope they’d work that out for themselves before it was too late.
They banded more tightly together as the Specials drew in around them; the Shadows hovered near the edge of the clearing, waiting. Eleanor saw Kit’s eyes track around as he counted them out, noting their positions, and she was glad at least one of them had noticed.
The Specials approached in two rows, moving in perfectly synchronised formation. The back row advanced as the front row stood still to let them pass, then they paused and waited as the roles were reversed. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause. However much the Shadows had been militarized by the Empress, she could never imagine them adopting this stilted, choreographed motion. Step, step, pause. What could it possibly gain the Specials to walk with such a pattern?
Simeon was still sitting on the ledge, feet dangling over the edge. It put him in the best position, a couple of feet above the heads of the others. As the Specials came closer he took careful aim and flung one of his knives towards the nearest soldier.
That was the moment that Eleanor understood the bizarre formation. On an individual level, the Specials were a long way from the proficiency and expertise of the Shadows, but as a unit they were more than the sum of their skills. The target of the knife didn’t even flinch in an attempt to get out of its path, but the man on his left stepped neatly past him and cut the blade out of the air. Eleanor cursed quietly. She had some ideas of how to get past their careful guard, but the boys were fresh from school. She couldn’t expect them to see it. Simeon had frozen; his next knife was poised but he didn’t release it, not wanting to lose another blade into the dirt for nothing.
They hesitated just long enough for the first line of Specials to reach them – and then hesitation stopped being an option. As the attackers engaged, Gaven turned and was about to plunge his dagger into Richard’s side, but from the corner of his eye he saw a flash of iron as one of the Specials came up beside him. He spun round to defend himself, blocking with the dagger he’d been about to use. Though he tried to negotiate his way into the attacking line, the soldiers wouldn’t stop pressing him and he was forced to fight back. Richard, exchanging blows with his own Special Corps opponent, was too preoccupied to even notice how close he’d come to being betrayed.
The students were putting up a good fight, but they were both outnumbered and outclassed. Injuries and tiredness combined to slow their movements, and they started to make more and more mistakes. By contrast, on the Imperial side there were soldiers – not to mention the Shadows – who had yet to engage in the fight. Eleanor was considering whether she needed to go down and help them out, when Simeon’s voice disturbed her thoughts: “Retreat! Fall back!”
She hadn’t even noticed him leave his post until he came running from deep within the cave.
“Are you mad?” Tal asked, shouting over his shoulder as he fenced with one of the Specials. He feinted left and then lunged, taking the girl down with a cruel stab to the stomach. She writhed on the ground, screaming in pain until one of her colleagues knelt beside her and slit her throat.
“Fall back!” Simeon waved his hands as he cried for their attention. “Fall back! There’s natural walls inside the cave. We can defend it, come on, quick!”
Eleanor knew the rock formation he was talking about, and was glad he’d found it. If they swallowed their pride and took his suggestion, they could hold off the Imperial attack indefinitely. And – though the students didn’t yet know it – they even had plenty of supplies in the caves to withstand a short siege. The Imperial forces would give up after a day or two, not wanting to waste much time starving out mere boys, and particularly not with the occasional crossbow bolt if they got too close.
Dan and Lukal started to pull back straight away, and gradually the others went along with them, edging backwards towards the natural fortifications Simeon had found. Tal and Gaven resisted the longest, until they were almost separated from the line. Tal stepped back in a hurry, not wanting to be isolated and surrounded by the enemy. Gaven made another attempt to change sides, but as thre
e Specials continued to attack him he had no choice but to fight back, and then he too was forced to join the others retreating into the relative safety of the cave.
The twelve remaining Specials formed a barricade across the cave’s entrance, but didn’t follow the boys inside. Eleanor breathed a little easier. The caves were unassailable. Now it was just a waiting game, and they’d get bored soon enough.
But the Imperial forces didn’t look like they were about to give up and go home, or even to settle down and wait. A couple of the Shadows – Ivan, and a towering lad that Eleanor didn’t recognise from Association days – stepped out of the shade of the trees to confer with the young lieutenant of the Specials. Of course she couldn’t hear them, but their animated gestures toward the caves suggested they were planning an assault. Well, let them try.
The lieutenant barked orders at his men, and the group split in two. Half of them disappeared between the trees while the remainder, joined by the Shadows, formed a knot by the mouth of the cave. In tight formation, they moved inside.
Eleanor slipped down from her treetop perch and crept down towards the clearing. It should all be fine so long as the boys kept their nerve, but she wasn’t quite confident in them. Besides, she could take out a few of the forest lurkers while they weren’t expecting anything. Every dead Special was one fewer enemy in the battles to come.
She loaded her blowpipe. The dart she selected carried a poison of Daniel’s invention, one which would paralyse the victim before slowly killing him. In these circumstances it would be better to avoid the writhing agony which tended to accompany the fast-acting poisons.
She spied her first target crouching between two trunks. Perfect. He wouldn’t even have far to fall. She came within a few feet of him before firing the dart straight into his neck, and he seemed not to even notice. He was trying to hold his muscles still anyway; he’d be dead before he realised he was frozen to the spot.
She crept around the clearing and quickly despatched two more, before noises emanating from the caves disturbed her. But the sounds weren’t what she expected to hear: instead of the clash of weaponry, there came coughing and shouted curses.
Eleanor broke cover and sprinted across the clearing, trusting the element of surprise to confuse the remaining lurkers between the trees – after all, she was coming from the wrong direction, and she was still wearing her uniform jacket. She felt a knife fly past her ear as she ran, but there was no cover nearer than the cave itself, and no time to stop and worry about other blades that might follow. Inside the mouth of the cave, though, she found chaos. The air was thick with an acrid black smoke. Almost nothing was visible, but most of the coughing came from the back of the cave where she expected to see the students.
She dropped to her knees, lowered her head to where the air was clearer, and spotted the feet of the knot of Imperial troops. After taking a deep breath of clean air, she launched herself into the middle of them. She held a knife in each hand and slashed wildly as she spun, taking down five soldiers and a couple of Shadows before she even paused to draw breath. She dived to the ground, trusting the smoke to cover her as she rolled out of reach, and stopped to consider her next move. Crouched against the wall of the cave, she could see only the backs of their heels as the surviving men ran from the sudden massacre.
She got to her feet and turned back to where the students were watching her through the gradually-dissipating smoke, eyes wide. Only Gaven managed not to look surprised, but she was confident even he wouldn’t have seen anything quite like this before.
“Don’t know what you’re staring at,” she said. “Any one of you could’ve done that.”
Then she leap-frogged over the wall and knocked Gaven and Tal to the ground, pinning them down with one bloody knife against each throat while her new colleagues fanned out to defend against anyone who might decide to come back for more.
“Which of you set this up?” she demanded, looking from one young face to the other.
“Why d’you think that?” Tal asked.
“Just answer the question. Did you arrange this?”
He shook his head, and since she’d already decided he was innocent, she released him to concentrate her efforts on Gaven.
“Gaven?”
He looked straight into her eyes, and she wondered what he was planning. He wasn’t the sort to rest under her blade without considering his options.
“Don’t move,” she said. “I’d be sorry to lose you now, but I’ll kill you if I have to.”
“Do you expect me to defect?”
“You already have.”
“No.”
“You understand I can’t let you go. It’s up to you whether I send our thanks to the school – or the regrettable news of your death. So let’s talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Where do you think your first loyalty lies – with the Empire? With Venncastle?”
He nodded as though there were no need to choose between the two.
“You’re wrong. It’s here.” She plunged her dagger towards his throat, pulling back only as the point dimpled his flesh. “Whatever they tell you, when it matters, your first priority is to live. Why didn’t you fall out to join the ambush party? That’s what you’d planned.”
He kept his silence, still watching her.
“If you won’t answer, I’ll tell you. They didn’t give you the chance, and in the heat of a battle like that you fight back or you get killed. I’m glad you made the right decision.”
“You sound like you planned it.”
“I did.”
“But we–” he started, then stopped himself just short of a confession. “How could you plan for the Imperial forces to ambush you?”
“I’m sorry, did you think you were being clever when you went to tell the Provost about our little chat?”
She left a moment for him to answer, but he remained characteristically silent.
“Well, it’s not your fault you’re predictable, though we’ll try to train you out of it.”
“I mentioned your offer,” he said. “They said we could use the opportunity to take down all the Association recruits. They don’t want you trying to steal Venncastle men.”
“Theft? How quaint. And what did they promise you for your part in this? A star within weeks of stepping into uniform?”
His face tightened with anger. “I can’t be bought.”
“No, of course not. Just another of the ways you think you’re special.”
“What are you doing?” Tal asked. He was still sitting more or less where she’d left him, watching.
“I’m just talking a little sense into your friend,” she said. “I know you’ve already made your mind up, but this one’s still half tempted by the idea of a glorious martyrdom.”
“Hey! I don’t plan on dying.”
“Then you’d better get up and make yourself useful.”
She shifted her weight to let him move, and watched as his eyes flicked from her face to her weapons. Then his resolve wilted, and he got calmly to his feet.
“I suppose that’s how it is, then.”
“Good.” She glanced across at the others, counted them once, and then again to check. “Where’s Richard?”
None of them spoke, but Simeon cast his eyes down and inclined his head almost imperceptibly towards the ground. Peering past him, she could make out a dark lump in the shadows.
“Dead?” she asked, and he nodded.
“Well, this isn’t quite how I wanted you to start your careers, but none of us asked for this war.” She stepped across and threw her cloak across the body. “Come on, let’s get started. We’ll move him later.”
She led the students up to the watchtower where Mack and Stefan were both still poised at their arrow-slits.
“Any signs of life out there?” she asked.
“Not since you sent them running,” Mack said without looking away from the window.
Eleanor turned back to the stude
nts, who had filtered in behind her and arranged themselves in a line along the back wall.
“Welcome to the Association,” she said, taking off her Shadow Corps jacket and draping it over the back of a chair. “I haven’t introduced myself properly. My name’s Eleanor, and these are my colleagues, Mack and Stefan.”
She watched the students’ reactions as she spoke. None of them spoke, but she could see them studying her with a mixture of fascination and envy, just as she’d once studied the Association’s more experienced members.
“We ran the Association from these caves until we got access to our new headquarters,” she continued. “And you’re going to stay here until I can trust you to travel without getting us killed.”
“So this is the academy now?” Tal asked.
“The academy is history, for a while at least. I wish we had the luxury of running a full two-year training programme, but we’re in difficult times. We should have a few days before they can bring backup, so we need to be ready to move soon. I’m going to do my best to keep you alive, but anything more fancy than that will have to wait.”
As she spoke she was conscious that she’d already failed them. Richard’s body lay testament to that.
“You’ve had a long night and it’s time for you to get some sleep,” she went on. “But first, I suspect you might be hungry.”
A couple of the lads nodded, and she handed two large flasks to Lukal.
“If you go back the way we came, and follow the tunnel down from the back of the cavern, there’s a freshwater spring. Fill these and come straight back up here.”
While he was gone, she opened the medical case Daniel had prepared for her, and proceeded to dispense woundwort poultices and cotton bandages to patch up the worst of their injuries.
Lukal returned with the water and after the boys had drunk their fill, Eleanor took a swig from one of the flasks. It was a fast-flowing stream that ran in the depths of the caves, and they were close to the source, so the water was always fresh and clear and cold. Just what she needed.
The food parcels contained stocks of biscuits and dried fish and fruit – more akin to emergency stores than the gourmet banquet with which she’d been welcomed to the academy, but she made no apology for it as she handed out rations. Things were very different now. She had no patience for anyone who might worry about home comforts in times of war, but fortunately the students were all quick to suppress their disappointment.
Once they’d seen to the essentials of food, water, and first aid, Eleanor gave out blankets and encouraged the students to sleep. She took one of the crossbows, and brought Lukal with her to guard the entrance while the others rested.
“Will you help me move these bodies?” she asked.
Richard’s body lay near their feet, and several Specials and Shadows beyond. They dragged the strangers outside first, stripping weapons and money from the corpses before dropping them in a heap inside the forest. Then they went back for Richard.
“He’d want us to use his weapons,” Lukal said, hesitating over the body. “Wouldn’t he?”
“I’ve never understood why people get more squeamish around bodies which used to be on their side,” Eleanor said. “It’s just another dead weight now. If you want his knives, take them – he won’t be using them again.”
“I suppose so.” Lukal took the daggers from Richard’s belt and added them to the pile of recovered weapons, then cut his purse and threw it across to Eleanor.
They sat on the rocks behind the barricade and Eleanor offered him a couple of biscuits.
“I don’t really think they’ll bother to attack us again,” she said. “Certainly not until they can fetch reinforcements from the city. But it’s always best to be careful.”
He glanced back into the caves. “Am I on duty all night?”
“Give the others a little time – you’re the only one who wasn’t really hurt in the fight. But you can doze here if you want, I’ll wake you if there’s trouble.”
He arranged himself with his back against the wall, and a moment later he was snoring. Eleanor didn’t expect any disturbances and none came; after a long and boring watch, she woke Lukal and sent him to fetch Tal and Simeon to take over. Only once they were settled in their positions did Eleanor curl up on a nearby ledge and risk allowing herself to sleep, the crossbow still ready in her hand.
Once everyone had rested, Eleanor roused them and brought out more biscuits for a meal she called breakfast, though it was late afternoon. She gave the students each a dose of Daniel’s strengthening tonic, as well, though she wouldn’t tell them what it was. They’d grow tired enough through training that the extra stamina would barely begin to compensate, but she didn’t want to have to explain the tincture’s unconventional origins.
She led them down to a cavern that the Association had used as its practice hall when they’d been based here, and unpacked some blunted knives.
“Right,” she said. “Let’s see what you can do. I’ve read your assessment files, of course, but I need to get my own idea of what you’re each capable of.”
She formed them into a circle and directed Kit and Aaron to take the first turn at sparring. After they each had a chance to challenge in a winner-stays-on competition, she wasn’t terribly surprised to see Gaven emerge victorious. Pulling her own dagger from its hilt she stepped into the circle herself.
He was as impassive as ever as he watched her approach, barely keeping his guard up. She took a few small steps around the circle and then lunged towards him, flicking her knife into her left hand and bringing the blade up against his throat while with her right hand she took care of his dagger, blocking his thrust and sending his weapon spinning across the floor.
“Sorry,” she said as she stepped back. “But you were being careless.”
“Let’s try that again,” he said, retrieving his knife and dropping into a more obvious guard this time.
“Later. I want time for that lesson to sink in, first. Arrogance is a typical Venncastle trait and it’s important we get past that sooner rather than later.”
“Why did you go to all this trouble to recruit us if you’re just going to slander our school?” Tal asked.
“Some of us would have preferred to manage without you,” Lukal muttered.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Eleanor said. “I have a lot of respect for Venncastle and its methods.”
She punctuated her words with the confirmation hand gesture, a subtle interleaving of fingers, and smiled when even the imperturbable Gaven couldn’t quite suppress his shock. Tal didn’t even try.
“The Association has always pandered to Venncastle,” Lukal said. “Why did I make the mistake of thinking things would be different since the edict?”
Eleanor ignored him and continued to address herself to Gaven and Tal: “There’s a fine line between pride and arrogance. However justified your self-confidence, overconfidence is a weakness that needs fixing. As for you,” – she turned to Lukal – “We’ll have no more of your sectarian whining. We’re all in this together. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
The students were silent.
“Okay. Now let’s see how well you climb.”
As she watched them picking out their routes up the craggy walls of the cavern, she caught herself reminiscing fondly over her own carefree days at the academy, when climbing better and faster than her peers had been one of the few things that mattered. Simeon twisted himself under a particularly challenging overhang, fingers jammed into a barely-stable crack as his toes scrabbled for purchase. When he reached the top, Eleanor called out to him.
“Simeon!”
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
She waited as he scrambled down the rock surface again. He dropped the last few feet and rolled, then got to his feet and faced her, smiling.
“That’s the last time you take the hard route just to be fancy,” she said. “Understood?”
He looked into her eyes for a m
oment, caught the seriousness of her expression, and his pride turned to embarassment. He nodded.
“Good. We don’t have time to impress anyone – the easy way is the safe way.”
“Safe?” Tal asked. “Isn’t death an occupational hazard in a job like this?”
“There’s a guy called Bill who taught me combat at the academy,” Eleanor said. “And in my first class he made us sit down and listen while he told us we weren’t in the military. We thought he was a bit crazy, but he was right and it’s still true. You’re not here to be footsoldiers of the revolution.”
“But...”
“No buts. If we need people to die for this, we have hundreds of rebels for that. The Association was here before the Empire and it’ll be here after this war. I’m not saying you won’t get hurt, but I don’t want you throwing your lives away.”
She set out targets to check their accuracy with throwing knives and stars, instructed them briefly in the art of aiming a blowpipe, and tested their balance and agility. Only after she was sure she’d got a measure of them all did Eleanor allow them a meal break.