On the morning seven days after my picnic with Faryn, the initiates gathered on the plateau outside the guild house for endurance training. Rutmonlir stood atop the house’s battlements while we all gathered as many rocks as could fit inside our leather sacks. Once the sacks were completely full and bulging with the weight, we lined up at the bottom of a mountain path. My bag of rocks weighed 200 pounds easily, but the constant training with Vigor had made me far stronger than even the world’s greatest weightlifting champion on Earth.
Rutmonlir gazed down upon the 30 initiates and grinned. “Run!”
I was the first to break out from the pack, and Hamon was the closest behind me.
“I haven’t forgotten my promise,” he said as he came alongside me.
He attempted to kick my legs from under me, but I jumped and avoided his attack. The sack of rocks weighed me down a little, but my increased strength allowed me to leap almost three feet into the air.
“Peasant,” Hamon spat as he surged past me.
He was easily the quickest among us, and the rocks didn’t slow him down at all.
“Faster!” Rutmonlir bellowed from his place on the battlements. “You lot think a Daji will slow down to let you get away? That bastard’s gonna gobble you up soon as its looks at you. Sometimes, you’ve gotta be ready to run!”
I grimaced but picked up the pace. My bag of rocks bumped against my back as I increased my speed. I’d feel the bruises from this later, but if I didn’t do as Rutmonlir said, I’d only end up with a worse task. That was the hunting master’s way of teaching—push you until you almost broke, and push you more if you actually fell.
The mountain pathway resounded with the sound of dozens of feet, all beating their own rhythm against the packed dirt. We continued to climb the mountainside, and Rutmonlir seemed able to see us from even hundreds of feet away. I figured his Augmentation abilities gave him hawk-like eyesight, and everytime he yelled out, I could hear him as if he was right next to me.
Some initiates looked ready to break, bent almost double beneath the weight of their bags. Their footfalls slowed to a stumble as they wheezed. I held my head high, determined not to show that sort of weakness. Whatever the masters threw at me, I could take it.
Heavier footfalls approached me from behind. A moment later, Kegohr was beside me, lips peeled back to reveal rows of pointed teeth, miniature versions of his protruding tusks. His muscular bulk slowed him in a sprint, but proved perfect for this sort of endurance run. He loped forward on legs like tree trunks as other initiates fell aside, but even he was streaming with sweat by now.
Someone groaned and fell to the ground. I turned to see rocks tumble out of a younger initiate’s bag. I’d seen him struggling with the exercise classes before. Now, he lay in the dirt and panted for breath, his face a picture of misery. I knew others would start dropping before long.
I went to help him up when something cracked me in the head. I reached up and touched the spot, and my hand came away bloody. A stone came to a stop at my feet as I searched for whoever had thrown it.
A few feet away from the mountain path was a dilapidated shrine with a red dragon painted into the gables. The scarlet tiles on the rooftop were mostly missing, and it looked as if it had been centuries since anyone had come to pray there.
I caught sight of green robes hiding inside the shrine as another rock hurtled toward me. I ducked before it would have struck home.
Green robes? It was someone from Clan Wysaro.
I peered across the mountain and saw Rutmonlir, little more than a speck on the guild house’s battlements. I was almost certain he could still see me from so far away, but maybe he was paying more attention to the other initiates. I couldn’t just continue up the mountain if it meant missing out on teaching Hamon a lesson.
If it had been Hamon, then I figured he was trying to draw me into the shrine to attack me. I was almost certain it was some kind of trap, but when else would I get a chance like this, when the masters weren’t around to see? Hell, Rutmonlir might not even care if we fought while we were outside the guild’s walls. After all, Hamon had tried to trip me, and Rutmonlir must have seen it and decided to do nothing.
As I moved off the path toward the shrine, I sincerely hoped Hamon had been the one to throw it so that I would have an excuse for teaching him a lesson. I dropped my sack of rocks beside a dragon statue and entered the tiny building, prepared to attack whoever had thrown the rocks. Instead, the small room was empty save for three statues. One was a great dragon, the red paint chipped and cracked. It was suspended in midair, but I saw no sign of cables or ropes. My skin tingled as I stared at it, and I wondered whether it was suspended by magic.
To the left, stood a sculpture of an unremarkable martial artist, but the sword in his hand was impressive. It was also familiar. The
