Siege of Pailtar (7 page)

“My thanks, Everet, and what of you?”

“I’ll be gone within the hour. Meron is lost to me at this point until King Ganus is defeated. He has too many spies, I need to start thinning their numbers out.”

“May the gods watch over you,” said Bryant.

Everet slipped back out of Bryant’s house and headed back to retrieve Serena. It was time to leave Meron.

7

Pailtar

KEYON SAT AT THE
end of her bed. For the second day in a row, Kiana woke to the sight of the thief sitting there. Today, he was just reading the captain’s journal. Kiana looked to the now empty rafters.
Damned thief
, she thought.

“That was an impressive display you put on yesterday,” said Keyon.

“You were watching?” replied Kiana.

“Almost every minute, you really need to work on your magic skills. Blowing on a scorpion is not exactly a skill set.”

Kiana groaned, “You saw that? How the heck did you see that?”

“I am a master member of the Thieves’ Guild. I can sneak as well as anyone, even your mother. By the way, I apologize for the meat mishap; it seems the captain trained his lion to recognize tainted meat. Rather ingenious if you ask me.”

Kiana gave Keyon a dirty look, “Who the heck keeps a lion in his tent anyways? I thought you were exaggerating until I got in there and had to get by that monster. Did you see that too?”

“Oh yes, I was quite impressed with your acrobatic skills. Personally, I thought using a freeze spell or levitation would have been much safer, but your mother has told me of your aversion to magic, so I suppose that was a logical method of getting the book.”

“Ex-aversion to magic” corrected Kiana. Never again would she dismiss the value of magical skills.

Keyon nodded, “I stand corrected, and your ex-aversion to magic was a hindrance. Now, get dressed. You have another long day ahead of you.”

Kiana groaned “More lions?”

“Worse,” replied Keyon as he closed the journal and got up off the edge of her bed. “Today you have the written tests.”

…

Keyon had not been joking, the tests were terrible. This was the third one in a row, each lasting longer than an hour, with the most boring inane questions imaginable. Half of them were based on Guild Laws, the written code that Guild members had to agree to upon joining, the other half were based on weird scenarios where a moral question would arise.
Should you kill the newborn baby for a copper? Who the hell answered yes to a question like that anyways? Hopefully the Guild avoids psychos like that.

Kiana shook her head, she was getting distracted. She focused on the next question. “What percentage of earnings must a thief give to the Guild?” Another boring and easy question, but an important one she supposed as she wrote down her answer “twenty, but the thief can apply for reimbursement of half that at the end of the calendar year if earning are below the living wage as designated by the Guild.” Learning Guild tax laws had been annoying at the time, but Kiana was now grateful her mother had insisted she should at least learn the fundamentals.

After another hour of writing the exams Kiana was done. She looked around the room. Eight other applicants were still writing. One boy on the far end was done and surveying the crowd the same way she was.

The blond-haired boy saw her looking around and smiled at her, giving her a wink.

Ewww
, thought Kiana.
What a cocky boy
. Ignoring his attentions, Kiana returned to studying the other group of potential Guild members. She saw two boys that were obviously younger than her, a couple boys that would be about her age, an older girl and one middle age man. The Guild had no real age restrictions beside the minimum age of eleven.

Technically Kiana could have applied two years ago, but the program for those under the age was only a junior training program where students were allowed to take basic magic courses, panhandle and pickpocket under supervision. Kiana had not wanted to study magic and was no panhandler. She had been practicing pickpocketing since she was old enough to walk. The program would have been a waste for her. On her mother’s insistence she had continued in the normal city school for two years longer.

At the two-hour mark, Kiana was bored enough to scream. When the instructor finally called time she let out a breath of air.
About damned time
she thought. It was obvious that not all the students felt the same way as they scribbled out one last answer before being forced to stop writing.

“The written tests you did earlier have all been marked, I will be marking these ones while you all go through the hand to hand testing part of the examination. At the end of the day you will be assigned a group task,” said the instructor.

Hand to hand, Kiana looked forward to this. She wasn’t a big girl, average in stature, no taller than the average thirteen-year-old girl, but Kiana was extremely proficient in hand to hand. Wrestling and martial arts were regular parts of her training with her mother. Or as her mother said ad nauseam “Train the mind and the body, without one the other will fail.” Kiana thought it was a little hokey, well a lot actually, what did training the mind have to do with the body? But then again, her mother was right more often than not and considering how correct she had been about using magic, Kiana was trying to open her mind to new ideas.

As the students filed out of the classroom, she could hear a couple of the boys talking, “I hope they make us wrestle the girls.” The boy had a smirk on his face as he spoke.
Stupid punk
thought Kiana. Her eyes burned holes into the boy’s back as they walked towards the gym. She too hoped the boys would get the opportunity to wrestle with the girls. She would show that jerk a thing or two.

The hand to hand combat instructor was an older sinewy man. Some of the students seemed surprised by his small stature. Not Kiana, she knew from experience that size had little to do with combat success. She knew size and reach were assets to a fighter, but proper training and technique were more valuable. She also knew a small but well-trained fighter would more often than not defeat a bigger but untrained fighter. A small combat instructor was likely very well trained.

When the students all sat down in a horseshoe around the instructor he began talking. “Today is not a lesson day. Today is strictly for measuring skill levels. No blows to the face or bone breaking. Do we have any volunteers to start?”

 The rude boy who had commented about wrestling the girls put his hand up.  When Kiana saw this, her hand shot up as well. The instructor raised his eyebrow but said nothing. He simply gestured for them both to stand and begin.

Inside the horseshoe of students was a small circle eight feet in diameter. The objective was to pin your opponent or force them out of the circle. Get pinned or tossed out of the circle three times and you lose.

The rude boy smiled at Kiana as he walked into the circle. Kiana ignored him, instead giving the instructor a small formal bow of her head. She then did a couple stretches to warm up the muscles. Sitting in a chair writing tests all day was not conductive to peak performance. The boy just stood there and laughed “are we dancing or fighting?” he said in a mocking tone.

Kiana smiled, and stepped into the circle. She raised her fist to her eyes, the instructor said no blows to the face, but that didn’t mean no punching.

The boy took a grapples position, hands forward, leaned forward with his hands open.

Kiana noted his position, it was likely the boy had wrestling experience and expected to pin her. Too bad for him she had no intention of wrestling.

The instructor gave a nod, signaling for them to begin. The boy quickly moved forward, wanting to put Kiana on the defensive.

Kiana took one step forward, giving herself a little room from the edge of the circle. Then she waited for her opponent to come to her. The boy stepped up closer, preparing to lunge at her. Kiana struck quickly and hard. She first feinted bringing her left knee up towards his head. The boy instinctively rose up, bringing his hands up to protect his head. Kiana’s left foot went back to the ground; she then kicked the boy in his exposed ribs. The swift kick caught him in the ribs, driving the air of his lungs. Kiana followed up the kick with a quick flurry of punches to the ribs and chest. If the instructor had allowed head punches she would have used an uppercut, but instead she took satisfaction in delivering another blow to his kidneys, before using a leg sweep to bring the boy down to the ground. The instructor lifted his hand, signifying a point for Kiana. She returned to her corner and waited for the boy to gather himself. He limped back to his corner.

When the instructor gave the signal to begin again the roles were reversed. This time the boy came out warily while Kiana rushed across the circle. As she bolted forward she again feinted a knee lift. This time the boy took a big step back, raising his head but keeping his hands low to protect his hurting ribs. Kiana promptly pushed him back. He stumbled back and out of the circle. The instructor raised his hand signaling another point for Kiana.

The boy looked up startled. He was being embarrassed in front of the others. His hands balled up into fists, as he returned to the edge of the circle.

Kiana said nothing, simply returned to her edge of the circle and waited for the instructor to give the signal. With the now familiar gesture the round began. This time the boy tried circling around, going to Kiana’s left. He obviously was wary of her right foot and was trying to protect his hurt ribs. Kiana simply stepped into the middle of the circle. The boy could circle all day; as long as she was in the middle of the circle he would gain no ground. Once the boy realized this, he simply charged at Kiana in an attempt to tackle her around the waist and drive her to the ground. Kiana dropped, allowing her back to hit the ground before the charging boy could get to her. From the ground she grabbed his shoulders and lifted both her feet into his belly driving him through the air. The boy soared past the edge of the circle, landing awkwardly on his back. Once again, the instructor lifted his hand. Point and match for Kiana, she won the match three to zero. She gave the instructor another short bow and then silently walked back to her spot in the horseshoe of students.

As she sat down, the young boy beside her leaned over and whispered, “That was awesome. That guy is such a jerk.”

Kiana smiled, it had felt good to give the jerk a lesson. Perhaps next time he wouldn’t be so quick to volunteer to fight a girl. Kiana watched as the rest of the students took a turn. The two youngest boys wrestled with each other.  Neither had much for skills, but they made up for it with their enthusiasm. The other girl ended up competing with the blonde winker. After the way Kiana handled the loud mouth, winker boy wisely kept his comments to himself. The other girl was not nearly as good a fighter as Kiana and winker beat her fairly easily, three rounds to none. The rest of the matches were pretty non-eventful and boring.

When the instructor stood up he walked around the circle of students. At each student he would stop, look at them and say a number. The two young boys were each a one, rude boy was a one, annoying winker was a two; the other girl a one, the older man was a two. When the instructor got to Kiana he looked down at her, paused for a moment then said “three.”

Kiana still didn’t have a clue what the numbers meant. She turned to the older man beside her, “Do you know what the numbers mean?”

The older man nodded “One means, you couldn’t fight your way out of a rotten cotton sack and need to take the first-year course. Two shows some skill and means you can sign up for intermediate classes. Three means you qualify for advanced instruction. Congratulations, not many get to level three. The first time I enrolled in the Guild school there were many twos and a couple threes. This year’s crop is pretty pathetic in comparison. Personally this is my first time getting to level two. Took me three tries,” said the older man with a grin.

Great, why do I do this to myself
, Kiana thought, she didn’t even like fighting. Why on earth would she want to be enrolled in advanced fighting classes? Once again she had ignored her mother’s advice about blending in. Now she was in danger of having to take advanced fighting classes. Kiana shook her head,
Why can’t I just ignore stupid boys and their stupid comments?

Trying to avoid thinking about the bruises and beatings she would endure in intermediate classes, she asked the old man about his comment about continually trying to get into the Guild.  “You have enrolled in the Guild school before?” asked Kiana.

“Oh ya, this is my fourth try in twenty-five years. I would have enrolled more often, but it takes me a while to save up the coin. Hopefully, with any luck this is the year I succeed. I am pretty sure I did decent at the tests this time around. Now I just have to survive the team challenge.”

“Team challenge? We have to work in teams?” Kiana did not like the sound of this. She, like most thieves, was a lone wolf. She worked alone, well except when with her mother, but that was different.

 “Oh yes, the team challenge is one of the most important tests. You can ace the rest and still not get accepted to the Guild if you don’t pass the team challenge. My last time here I was almost accepted, but our group fell apart during the test and everyone tried to finish the task by themselves. Some even did it, but every one of us failed because of the way we fell apart. Rule thirty-seven of Guild law, members will work together cordially when necessary,” explained the old man.

Kiana groaned, she knew rule thirty-seven. Heck, she knew all the rules, but she didn’t really think that it was that firm of a rule. She had thought it meant play nice during Guild meetings, don’t steal from each other (very often) and never kill another Guild member (unless attacked first) and the last one was actually its own rule; rule twenty-six “thou shall not kill Guild members.” Kiana was mortified, her success in Guild school relying on others? It was bad enough she had to trust and work with others? Mother had not mentioned that!