Guardians of Magessa (The Birthright Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

“Well, looks like Cirro really is going
to get to plant flowers along twenty miles of road,”
he thought sourly. He grabbed some paper from a lower
drawer of his desk and began to write on five sheets. Divided up into five
parts, the work load appeared lighter, but the cadets would still have to work
hard in order to finish it. He finished transferring the assignments and handed
the five sheets to his captains. The men saluted, then turned and left.

Josiah sighed and rose to his feet. He
would have to supervise the men and would probably put in a good amount of work
himself. He waited for four groups of the cadets to leave the barracks then
left his office. The captain in charge of the men who remained in the barracks
approached Josiah.

“Well, Terza, let’s get this
show on the road,” Josiah told the captain.  “To start, remake all the beds
with military precision. After that, I want every single bed checked to make
sure it is perfect. Next, I want you to get some sandpaper and rub down all of
the bedframes. I don’t know if that commander can actually do what he
threatens, but I’m not planning on finding out. After you do that, I want every
inch of this
barracks swept, dusted, and
polished. Wash down the walls and everything else that isn’t perfectly clean.
Once you have all that done, let me know, and I’ll come look at it and see if
there is anything else I want done. Oh yeah, one other thing—work well, but
quickly. This barracks needs to be done for inspection; that should happen
shortly after lunch. It wouldn’t hurt to have it done before that because,
knowing my superior, he will drop in early.”

“Yes sir, Commander Pondran,” the captain
said and saluted. “Everything will be done as you ordered.”

“Good. I’ll be back in a few hours to see
how things are progressing.”

Josiah turned and walked out of the
barracks and headed for the buildings on the north side of the campus. Cadets
swarmed the streets as they hurried to prepare the grounds for the arrival of
the cadets from the academy in Belvárd. Several hundred cadets, all obviously
under the same captain, washed and painted several
buildings
and tried to bring the
m to perfection by the following day. Cadets also
swarmed the roads, planting flowers and pruning the shrubs that already
existed. Several trees that had been judged to be too closely spaced were dug
out and new trees had been planted. As Josiah watched, the old trees were cut
up into pieces and taken to the campus wood pile. Through the windows of
several buildings, Josiah could see cadets sweeping, mopping, dusting, and
painting the insides of the buildings. Josiah shook his head and again wondered
why the campus officials found it necessary to wait until the day before the
Belvárd cadets’ arrival to do everything. He finally found his troops and
stopped to examine their work. One squad was working on the outsides of seven
buildings. They had constructed some temporary scaffolding and were crawling
all over it in order to wash the outside of the buildings and repaint them.
Another squad of cadets had been divided into several smaller groups, each of
which was responsible for cleaning the inside of a building. Josiah approached
the working cadets and began to look for his captains. He saw one examining the
paint on one of the buildings and made his way toward him.

“Morning, Stanslaw,” Josiah greeted the
agitated captain. Stanslaw turned and saluted, and Josiah returned the salute.

“Good morning, Commander Pondran,” Stanslaw
responded.

“How’s everything coming along?” Josiah
asked as his eyes roamed the buildings.

“Pretty good so far, Commander,” Stanslaw
answered. “We started off with some problems, but they have been taken care of,
and we’re working quite well and efficiently now. I estimate that we’ll be done
with our assigned work by the end of today at the latest.”

“Good,” Josiah answered. “Keep that
schedule if possible, and if you get done early, tell me. I’ll probably have
something else for you to do.”

Stanslaw saluted and, after Josiah
returned the salute, he turned back to supervising the work. Josiah turned and
walked toward the east end of the campus. Along the main road, a squad of his
troops was planting flowers, pruning bushes and trees, and replacing trees when
necessary. Josiah headed straight for the captain, who saluted him, and he
returned the salute.

“What’s the situation, Yugart?” he asked.

“We’re coming along great so far,
Commander,” Yugart answered. “I split my squad up into several smaller groups
and each is covering a road. This group,” Yugart gestured to the cadets in
front of him, “is one of the larger ones, so they’re covering the main road.
I’ve got messengers going to each of the other groups to bring reports, and so
far they’re all making good time.”

“Commander Pondran?” The call came from
down the road to the west, so Josiah turned to see a group of several officers
making their way toward him.

“Yes?” Josiah answered. “What is it?”

“More orders, Commander,” a superior
officer from the group answered. “These are jobs that never got assigned to
anyone.” An officer advanced and handed a sheet of paper to Josiah.

“Yes, sir, I’ll see to this immediately,”
Josiah said as he glanced across the sheet. The officers saluted, then turned
and left. Josiah saluted their
backs and turned
to Yugart.

“I’m going to need about five men,
Yugart.”

“Very good, sir,” Yugart said. “It will
probably be best for you to pick five from this group so that you can be off to
do what needs to be done.”

“Very well; I think I will.” Josiah saw
that Yugart forwent the salute, but didn’t argue the fact. The morning was
already getting tedious with all the salutes. Instead, he turned to the west
and headed down the road.

“Cadet Cirro,” he called as he passed a
group of cadets pruning some trees. “Bring your tools and choose four more
cadets.” When Cirro and his detail reached him he added, “Let's go. We've got a
lot of work to do and time's wasting.”

******

Senndra groaned and rolled out of bed. Her
body throbbed and ached with every movement, and she knew that she would regret
last night’s tournament for quite a while. Still rubbing the sleep out of her
eyes, she grabbed her uniform and stumbled down the hall to the showers. She
found only one stall open and took it. For some unknown reason, the thought
of first-year
cadets popped into her head. They were
the ones that had to get up before everyone else and pump water up to the top
of the building. That way, when the cadets used the showers, they simply
controlled the flow
of water from a tank down to the
showers.

The water was cold, so Senndra didn’t
linger. After she finished, she headed down to her room. The only thing
scheduled for today was an awards ceremony, during which several people would
be recognized, including cadet of the year, best swordsman of the year, and
many others. There were no classes today, so Senndra planned to relax in her room
and read a book. She pushed the door of her room open and glanced at Rita. She
was still sleeping in her bed, and it looked like it would take quite a bit to
wake her. Senndra switched her gaze to Feddir and saw that he was still
asleep as well.
She grabbed a bag from the cupboard
and poured a small amount of the contents into a bowl that sat next to her
sleeping dragon. According to Miss Farley, this was the best thing to feed
young dragons, but Senndra still grimaced as she saw what looked like dried beetles
and
meat. She placed the bag back in the cupboard and
turned to the single bookshelf in the room. As she did so, she caught sight of
her weapons hanging on the back of a chair.

“Lemin’s class!” she gasped. In the
excitement of last night, she had forgotten that Lemin was planning on having
class today. Quickly, she grabbed her sword from the quiver, slid it into its
regular sheath, and headed out the door. She strapped on the weapon as she ran
down the hall and burst into the stairwell at a sprint. She took the stairs two
at a time, and exploded out of the dorm at full speed. Glancing at the sun, she
guessed that Lemin’s class was probably only half over, so she might not get in
too much trouble. Actually, if she knew Lemin correctly, she wouldn’t get in
any trouble at all, but she didn’t want to disappoint her teacher. After all,
he seemed to have his heart set on fighting her today.

Senndra sprinted up the path that led to
the fighting arena and didn’t slow down until she had almost reached it. With
one more bend to go, she slowed to a walk and strode into the arena. Lemin was
sparring with another cadet, so she entered the stands and sat with the other
cadets that were there. The crowd was much larger than normal, and for some
reason, it felt to Senndra that everyone was looking straight at her. She tried
to shake the feeling and watched the cadet that was currently in the
arena with Lemin. She noticed that while he guarded
himself well, he was clearly outclassed by the instructor. The fight lasted
another twenty seconds, in which time Lemin managed to successfully strip the
sword from his opponent. The cadet retrieved his sword and left the arena even
as the next one entered. This cadet carried himself better than his
predecessor, but when he moved to engage Lemin, Senndra saw that he, too, was
severely outclassed by the instructor. As the battle began, another cadet moved
to sit by Senndra. She turned to see Timothy and was again unnerved by his
eyes. She wondered exactly what had caused that phenomenon.

“I never found
out
last night…so,
what’s your name?” Timothy asked.

“Senndra,” she stammered. Despite the fact
that his eyes were unusual, Timothy was quite handsome. She had never been good
around other people, much less
good-looking
men, and now her tongue seemed to tie itself in knots.

“You did well yesterday,” Timothy
commented, glancing at the two combatants in the arena. Lemin was toying with
the cadet, and they both knew it. As a result, the cadet was getting
increasingly frustrated.

“Thank you,” Senndra responded.
“Apparently you did better,” she added with a laugh.

“I may have won the contest,” Timothy
said, “but I’m not the one that everyone is talking about. The fact that you
beat your first opponent in under a minute is amazing. You even broke a record
by defeating him in less than forty-seven seconds, but that isn’t what people
are talking about. You finished the bout in exactly eighteen seconds, which is
phenomenal. I don’t even think Lemin has
beaten
someone that quickly
before. Anyway, a lot of the cadets,” Timothy
gestured to the crowd in the stands, “including myself, showed up today to
watch you spar with Lemin. You’re the person with the best chance of beating
him, and they want to be here to see it happen.”

“Well, it’s very nice of them to think
that,” Senndra stammered, “and I want to believe them, but I don’t think
they’re correct. Besides, aren’t you the one with the best chance of beating
Lemin? After all, you did win the contest.”

“Doesn’t matter to them,” Timothy
answered. “They think you’ll beat him, and the only way they’ll believe
otherwise is if you get out there and lose to him. Besides that, you definitely
have some advantages that I do not. After all, you consistently beat your
opponents in very little time. I have never before beaten anyone as quickly as
you have. Who knows, perhaps that will give you the edge that you need to win
today.

"Oh, and one other thing,"
Timothy said.  "You had me on the ground last night and didn't press the
advantage. Why not?”

“That was only fair,” Senndra argued.
“Anyone with any decency would have done the same.”

“Well then, a lot of people I know and a
lot that I don’t know have no decency. They openly admit that they would have
taken advantage of the situation and ended the fight,” Timothy answered.

The statement left Senndra speechless, and
she turned back to watch the activity in the arena. There was a new cadet
fighting Lemin now, and he was faring no better than any of the other cadets
that Senndra had seen previously. With
a well-aimed
slash
, Lemin swung at the cadet’s legs, but pulled his blade up at the
end of the stroke and pressed the point against the cadet’s throat. As the
cadet left the arena, Lemin scanned the crowd until his gaze fell on Senndra.
Lifting his hand, he beckoned for her to come. Slowly, she got to her feet and
began to descend toward
the battlefield
. Out
of the corner of her eye, she could see Rita arriving at the arena. She
appeared breathless, as though she had run the whole way, but Senndra didn’t
think about it. Instead, she focused on Lemin and carefully scanned his body.
He didn’t appear to be exhausted in the least, nor was he even sweating. That
was good; Senndra didn’t want to beat him and then have it attributed to the
fact that he was tired. She laughed to herself; now
she
actually thought
that she had a chance against the elf? It was amazing the thoughts that a lot
of delusional spectators could put into her head. She reached the ground and
hopped over the fence that enclosed the arena. She crossed the distance between
herself and her instructor and slid her sword from its scabbard.