Pathfinder's Way (46 page)

Daisy wasn’t exactly a term she would assign
to the scarily capable Caden.

The old man looked up, his slightly cloudy
blue eyes, coming to rest on Shea. His head tilted and he shuffled
forward a few steps.

“This her, then?”

Caden grunted.

“Hm,” the old man said.

He stuck his face close to hers and craned
his neck like a giant, white feathered bird. Shea leaned away,
disconcerted at the close scrutiny.

“Not very pretty.” The old man looked her up
and down and then cocked his head. “Kind of scrawny too.”

Shea stared back at him with the blankest
expression she could muster. He’d have to do better than that if he
wanted to offend her. She’d never put much stock in her looks. They
were always just there. Like the sun or the sky. Neither helping
nor hindering. Her strength, speed and capability were infinitely
more important.

She disagreed, however, with his assessment
of scrawny. Scrawny implied she was just skin and bones. It implied
weakness, and Shea wasn’t weak. Her body was lined with trim
muscle.

“Not easy to bait, then.”

“Doesn’t seem so.” Caden’s lips twitched.
Barely. The motion was so small Shea wasn’t entirely sure she
hadn’t imagined it.

“Quiet.” The old man hadn’t taken his eyes
off Shea since his first observation, but now he gave Caden a
sidelong glance.

“Her squad said she prefers to keep her own
council.”

The white haired man hacked deep in his
lungs. Shea started when she realized it was his version of a
laugh.

“That’s not good. The Clan Heads will run
right over her.”

“Maybe.” Caden folded his arms and leaned
back against one of the tables stacked high with clothes before
crossing his legs at the ankles. “But not necessarily. Her squad
leader said she won’t shut up if she thinks she’s in the right.
Said he’s never seen someone do quiet insubordination so well.”

Meynard gave his hacking laugh again. “So
there’s a little bit of fire behind those pretty eyes. That’s good.
She’ll need it.”

“Fallon wants her outfitted in his colors.”
There was a distinct pause. “She’s to be one of his personal
guards.”

The old man’s bushy eyebrows rose in
surprise. “Not his Tolroi?”

“She refused.”

The old man’s lips pursed as if he’d just
tasted something sour.

Shea hadn’t expected anybody to know about
that. Fallon was popular with his army and some might be insulted
on his behalf that she had rejected his offer. Of course, the other
half would have been enraged if she’d accepted.

“Did you now?” he asked her.

Her chin jerked once in affirmation.

“And why is that?”

One shoulder rose. “I’m a scout, not a bed
mate.”

“Not anymore,” Caden informed her. “You’re a
guard now.”

Shea’s composure cracked momentarily as a
visceral denial fought to be released. The implacable expression on
Caden’s face froze her. He let her know without ever speaking a
word that he was willing to beat that fact into her body until she
agreed.

She closed her mouth on what she had been
about to say and looked away briefly as she brought her emotions
under control.

“So? Why are you here?” Meynard asked.

“I need you to give her the test.”

The man shuffled over to Caden. “Does the
Hawkvale know about this?”

“It’s his order.”

The old man’s head dropped forward as he
studied the ground at his feet for a moment before giving Shea an
assessing glance.

“I don’t think I’ve ever given it to a woman
before.”

Caden grunted.

Shea shifted under their regard. Had she ever
heard anything about a test? The way Caden said ‘The Test’ made it
seem important.

She fidgeted slightly as they discussed
details, the tight feeling of being closed in on all sides coming
back.

She hoped this was just a skills test. Maybe
a personality test.

This wouldn’t be as bad as the last test
she’d taken. Probably.

Shea jerked back as a crack rent the air. The
old man flicked a thin whip again, curling it around her thigh and
leaving a smarting welt behind. She hadn’t even seen him pick up
the weapon.

Shea reached for the dagger at her back and
cursed silently when she felt nothing but air. She’d been disarmed
yesterday before meeting Fallon, and they never returned the blade.
She dropped into a crouch and watched the man’s torso carefully as
she prepared for the next blow.

“Her pain tolerance is pretty high.”

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

“She speaks,” Meynard cried. He fainted to
the left with the whip. Shea went right only to gasp as he nailed
her in the ribs. “I had begun to wonder if you were a mute.”

He cracked the whip several times on either
side of her, driving her back with each flick of his wrist. Despite
her best efforts he caught her twice more. Once on the ribs and
another on her left hand.

“You can avoid these any time you’d like,” he
told her.

She snorted. “Why? I can barely feel it.”

“Oh?”

She wanted to hiss as fire raced down one arm
before blood slowly trickled out of the cut he’d opened. He had
excellent control. Until then, he hadn’t drawn blood, just raised a
few welts.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” she
told him.

Taunts and bluffs were all she had to defend
herself with at the moment. Caden had very carefully made sure she
was unarmed for this meeting, and the old man was good enough with
his weapon that every attempt to sidestep or escape was
thwarted.

Perhaps this was the test.

The last ‘test’ she had taken had nearly
killed her. All pathfinders were subjected to the trial at the end
of their apprenticeship. Many died in the dangerous rite of
passage. She didn’t like to remember that time.

“So does this test consist of torturing your
target until they try to kill you?” Shea asked idly.

The old man cocked his head, observing her
from under bushy eyebrows. “No. What makes you think that?”

“Oh, because you keep hitting me WITH YOUR
WHIP.”

Two more cracks and welts formed under her
pants.

“Don’t be a goat brained Lowlander. This is
the easiest way to test your mental fortitude.”

Of course. She winced as one of his blows
landed across a previous one.

She’d had enough. She didn’t care if she
failed. Maybe if she couldn’t pass their little test, they’d let
her go back to being a scout, or better yet forget all about her so
she could get back to her life.

She reached back, grabbed a stack of clothing
and then threw it in the air between the old man and her. He drew
back, raising one hand to protect his face. Shea dropped low and
lunged, reaching out and twisting the whip out of his hand in a
smooth movement.

She backed away quickly. She looked from it
to the old man. He wasn’t getting this thing back.

“Took you long enough,” the old man said,
making no move to take the whip from her. “Takes a little to get
her going.”

Caden nodded once. “That was my assessment as
well, Meynard.”

“But once she gets going, she acts with clear
decisive intent.” The old man made a ‘hm’ of approval. He clapped
his hands together. “Next phase then.”

There were phases. This was going to be worse
than she thought.

She could always purposefully fail.

As if reading her thoughts, Caden said, “I
should warn you that if you fail, your friends, both the ones from
your village and the men you’ve been riding with over the past few
months, will suffer for it.”

Shea was quiet as that sunk in.

“What makes you think I care for a bunch of
Trateri trail pounders?” she finally asked.

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Uh huh.” She let a bit of amusement bleed
through, hoping it would cast just a little bit of doubt in his
mind about her motives. Maybe it would be enough that they would
stop threatening the other three to ensure her good behavior.

By the pitying look he gave her, she was
willing to bet he didn’t buy her attempt at subterfuge one bit.

Not that she was surprised. She’d never been
very good at misleading others through word or gesture. Her
teachers had always lamented her directness.

Yeah, Caden wasn’t buying her lies for one
minute.

“So what’s this next test?” Shea asked.

“Physical endurance.”

Shea felt a cautious relief. The life of a
scout and a pathfinder was geared towards one thing above all
others and that was endurance. If you didn’t have the ability to
walk or run for miles on end for hours upon hours, you wouldn’t
last through your first year. Shea had spent her entire life
building up those abilities.

Despite her confidence, she knew everybody
could be pushed beyond their breaking point. Even her.

“And that entails?”

The old man’s lips parted in a wrinkly smile.
“You’ll see.”

Shea’s thighs burned as a sharp ache dug
deeper and deeper into the muscle right between her shoulder
blades. Her shirt had turned several shades darker, and her hair
was plastered to the side of her head. She blinked away the sharp
sting of sweat and concentrated on her grip on the blade.

She had been right to be leery of the old
man’s endurance test. His workout menu was as bad as any pathfinder
she had ever studied under. Worse, because pathfinders were
cautious not to permanently break the youths who had been given
into their keeping. She didn’t think this man had any such
reservations.

The morning began like every morning, with a
brisk run around the encampment four times. Not the tent city but
the outer circumference, just past the sentry lines that were
patrolled by Trateri soldiers. One time around was roughly three
miles. The old man followed behind on horseback and any time he
thought she was going too slowly, he’d flick the whip against the
backs of her legs.

When the fast paced run from hell was finally
finished, he had her strap a carrying pole across her shoulder and
added a full bucket of water on either side and then had her carry
it up the steep quarter mile hill on the far side of camp.

At the top of that hill, he threw a round,
leather sand-filled ball at her, making her catch it. More often
than not, it hit her stomach before she could grab it. There was
blood on her shirt from when she missed and gotten hit in the face,
causing her nose to bleed.

After he’d judged this phase finished, he
forced her back down the hill. She’d thought it was over.

She should have known better.

Next, he escorted her to the spacious
training pen where Hawkvale’s personal guards practiced their
weapon work. He paired her with her guard from the day before,
Trenton, and had them run drills. Or more accurately, Trenton
pushed Shea back and forth across the arena as Shea had yet to
successfully block any move he had thrown at her.

He would attack and she would stumble back.
Rinse and repeat. For hours. By the time it was over, she collapsed
onto the small cot Fallon had stationed in his quarters, too tired
to offer even a token protest. She was asleep almost before her
head hit the pillow. The next morning she woke to more of the
same.

This routine continued for several weeks. At
the crack of dawn, Shea was up and attending to Fallon. Getting his
breakfast, carrying the water for his bath, dressing him. Once he
left for council meetings or to inspect his warriors, Shea was
released to Caden and the old man’s care. Each day they invented
new ways to test the limits on Shea’s endurance.

She lost toenails because of the distances
they made her run and became a walking bruise from the number of
blows Trenton landed.

The day’s training always ended the same way,
with Shea sparring against Trenton. Currently, the blade trembled
in Shea’s grip as she fought to stay standing. If she could just
block one blow, she might be able to get through this with a small
piece of her pride intact.

Another bead of sweat dripped into her eye,
and she shook her head, blinking rapidly. Trenton moved forward,
taking advantage of the moment’s distraction. Shea brought her
blade up, parrying his blow. The next moment the world spun as she
flew before landing hard. She blinked dumbly at the sky, noting
distantly that it was a perfect day for cloud gazing. The white
pieces of fluff danced and swirled in time to the wind.

Caden’s head imposed itself between her and
the sky.

“Have you had enough?”

Yes. Most definitely yes. She’d been ready to
quit this test after getting hit in the face with the sand-filled
ball, and definitely after the second time she’d landed face first
in the dirt during the weapon’s test.

It was an odd thing to ask, though,
considering his earlier threats.

“You’re trying to get me to give up,” she
said in realization. “The last few weeks have been to get me to
reconsider becoming Hawkvale’s Tolroi.”

“It would certainly be a lot easier than
this.”

“Was this his idea?”

Caden gave one of those shrugs again. One
that meant neither yes nor no and left her to draw her own
conclusion.

“I can’t. That’s not who I am.”

“Guess I can respect that.”

Didn’t mean he agreed with it. This day was
probably going to get a lot worst before the end.

“You should find your feet. The old man likes
to kick people when they’re down, and all of his recruits have been
trained to do the same.”

Shea grunted. She didn’t think she could get
up again.

The man who had been beating, oh excuse me,
sparring with her, took several determined steps towards her, and
she popped to her feet. Guess she could get up after all.

He grinned and raised his blade. She brought
hers up to a defensive position. It wasn’t easy. The muscles in her
shoulders and arms trembled with the effort.