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  That night Kel dreamed of going to the platform to answer the judges’ questions, only to find that she was naked. It left her grumpy. She skimped on morning exercises, washed and dressed, fed the birds and Jump, then made her way to the mess hall. Like Kel, her friends were nearly silent over breakfast.

  Halfway through the meal, she felt a trickle of wetness in her loincloth. What on earth? she thought, appalled. She was too old to wet herself like a baby. Besides, the little exams didn’t scare her that much! Crimson with humiliation and trying to hide it, she stood and put the last of her breakfast onto her tray.

  "Where are you going?" Neal mumbled, staring at her with bleary eyes. "We’re to report to the examination room. We can’t be late."

  "I won’t be late," Kel said tightly, feeling more wetness. Great Goddess, would it soak through to her hose? "I’ll only take a minute." She handed in her tray and raced back to her room.

  Lalasa was brewing her morning tea on the hearth. "My lady, what—?" she began, startled, as Kel ran by. Kel ducked into the dressing room and shut the door. Hurriedly she undid her points and rolled down her hose. If she’d wet herself, wouldn’t she have noticed a feeling in her bladder? This had come from nowhere...

  Blood was on her loincloth and inner thighs. She stared at it, thinking something dreadful was happening. Then she remembered several talks she’d had with her mother. This had to be her monthlies, the bleeding that told every girl she was ready to have babies if she wanted them.

  "Of all times for it to happen," she muttered, wetting a cloth in her washbasin and scrubbing herself. "First these"—she meant her breasts—"now this." She had a dull ache in her abdomen. Was that normal?

  Lalasa opened the dressing room door. Looking at Kel, she saw the problem immediately. "Do you know what this means?" she asked, opening a dry-goods chest and drawing out linen and a fresh loincloth.

  Kel nodded, still scrubbing.

  "Congratulations," Lalasa said. "You’ve become a woman. It’s the Goddess’s mark on us, that we bleed every month. You started early, didn’t you? Not even twelve. I was thirteen... Have you cramps?"

  Kel frowned. "Cramps?"

  "An ache, like." Lalasa patted her abdomen.

  Kel nodded.

  "Willow tea will help. Here." She showed Kel how to fix a linen pad inside her loincloth, to catch the blood. "We can change that at lunchtime."

  "I need clean hose, too," Kel said gloomily.

  "You look as happy as you did when I pointed out you needed a breastband," the older girl pointed out, her voice gently teasing.

  Kel opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. To her intense shame, tears began to roll down her cheeks. She turned away from Lalasa and buried her face in her hands.

  "Here, what’s this?" Lalasa turned Kel and pulled her mistress’s head down to her shoulder—she was two inches shorter than Kel. "Most girls are happy, you know. Please don’t cry. You never cry. Not when I would be awash in tears from all those bruises, not when that beastly horse steps on your foot—"

  "He doesn’t mean it," Kel said into that sensible white cotton shoulder.

  "Isn’t it just like you to stand up for him?"

  Kel drew away. "I hate my body doing new things without telling me," she said wetly, and sniffed. She wiped her eyes on the back of her arm.

  "Some get the weeps with monthlies, like cramps," Lalasa explained. "It could be worse. My mama got plain mean right before hers."

  "Mine gets hungry for sweets," Kel said, adjusting her loincloth impatiently. It now felt as bulky as a diaper. "She ate a whole cake once."

  Someone banged loudly on the outer door. "Kel, come on!" bellowed Neal. "We’ll be late!"

  "Hose." Lalasa dragged out a fresh pair. "I’ll tie one leg if you’ll do the other."

  "Neal, hold on," Kel shouted. "I have to fix something!" She struggled into both hose, then tied the points on her left side while Lalasa did up the right. Before they were half done Neal banged on the door again. "Go without me!" Kel ordered.

  "No! Come on!"

  Points and hose tied, Kel struggled back into her slippers. "Thank you," she told Lalasa warmly. "I’ll have that tea when I get back from the tests." She ran to the door and yanked it open.

  Neal stood there, red-faced with impatience, ready to knock again. "About time," he said. They trotted down the hall.

  "Why are you in such a tearing hurry?" demanded Kel, stopping in the classroom wing to adjust the hose on one leg. "We’ll get there."

  "You don’t understand," Neal said when they ran on. "If you’re even a little bit late, the Stump makes you repeat the last year. He did it to two boys three years ago. And if you’re really late, you have to repeat all four years. Edmund of Rosemark, a year before we started, was that late. He refused to do four more years and went home."

  "Why is he so hard on latecomers?" Kel asked.

  "You know the Stump. He says tardiness in a knight costs lives."

  "You could have gone without me," Kel reminded him. She stopped him and finger-combed his tumbled hair to lie flat. For a dizzying moment, she thought they were close enough to kiss, and swallowed hard.

  Neal destroyed her romantic daydream by straightening her collar in his most businesslike way. "I will not repeat even the littlest bit of this happy experiment of ours, if that’s all the same to you. And I should think you’d feel the same." They walked into the room together, to join the pages already there.

  Neal’s worries aside, the tests for second-years were every bit as easy as those for the first-years. First they were asked questions based on their classroom learning. Then they were ushered outside to show they had mastered the best part of a second-year’s combat lessons. After Neal hammering at her door and fretting that they might be as much as a step behind Lord Wyldon, it was something of a letdown. The examiners, whom Neal had once described as the oldest, fustiest nobles the king could find to judge the pages, seemed to frown a little deeper when Kel was tested. For all that, they couldn’t fault her answers, and she passed, just as the other first-, second-, and third-year pages did.

  The next week she and Neal watched the fourth-year examinations in support of the prince and Cleon. These tests, the big exams, were longer and harder than those given to the third-years, but again it was material the fourth-years were expected to know. Everyone passed.

  That night, the fourth-year pages moved to the squires’ side of the mess hall, to enthusiastic applause from their fellows. Kel, watching Joren, Vinson, Garvey, and Zahir walk away, heaved an inner sigh of relief. Things would be quieter in the pages’ wing, of that she was certain.

  More knights visited in May, watching the new squires in the practice courts, eating supper with Lord Wyldon as they looked over prospects. Kel had noticed them the year before, but had not much cared who had come. This year they would take people she knew. Lord Imrah of Legann, a bald, pockmarked man with a hawk’s-beak nose and pale, intelligent eyes, chose Prince Roald as his squire, to everyone’s surprise. In the past the heir had always served his father; it seemed King Jonathan meant to do this as differently as he did everything else.

  Kel also got to see her second oldest brother, Inness, who visited for a few days, before he rode north to the Scanran border. He took Cleon with him. Zahir was chosen as squire by the king. Joren went east with Paxton of Nond. Garvey and Vinson, as well as five other new squires, remained in the palace while Lord Wyldon took the pages out to their summer camp.

  seven

  HILL COUNTRY

  The year before, the pages had camped in the Royal Forest. This year the training master took them south and east, into the hilly country that lay between Lake Tirragen and the River Drell. Part of Kel’s sparrow company, eighteen birds in all, came along while the rest stayed at the palace. No one raised an eyebrow at the small birds’ presence: they had followed Kel the previous summer and had proved useful.

  In addition to Sergeant Ezeko, the two Shang warriors, Hakuin Seastone and
Eda Bell, rode with them. Kel had the idea that Eda, the Shang Wildcat, was her chaperon, just as she had been the year before. When she mentioned it to the older woman, the Wildcat laughed. "Maybe I just want to get out of the palace for two months," she said. "I’m a hillwoman, you know. Born and raised just south of Malven, till I ran off to the Shangs." She grinned, showing teeth like small white pearls. "I’m my lord Wyldon’s local expert."

  On their first morning away, Kel woke at her usual hour, before sunrise. Picking her way among blanketed forms in search of the latrine, she froze. Jump was curled up beside Lord Wyldon. As if he knew she was goggling at him, the dog opened one eye, wagged his tail twice, and closed his eye again. Kel cursed him silently all the way to the latrine. What if Lord Wyldon suspected the dog was a pet, not just a friendly stray? Instead of her glaive exercises she did some of the unarmed combat dances, combinations of punches, kicks, and rolls. They helped her burn off part of her fear that somehow Lord Wyldon would know Jump was hers and take the dog away.

  At breakfast Neal was the first of her group to notice Lord Wyldon’s companion. He choked.

  "Queenscove, what is the matter with you?" asked Eda Bell.

  Neal managed to point. "Dog."

  Lord Wyldon looked at the companion to whom he’d been feeding strips of bacon. "This fellow’s been hanging about the yards for months," he said calmly. "Evidently he’s taken a liking to us. With Daine in residence, it seems few animals are shy about expressing themselves."

  "Horses too," said Sergeant Ezeko. "Only reason I think my Dragonfly doesn’t talk to me is because she thinks I’m not smart enough to understand her."

  "I can’t believe our dog’s toadying to the Stump," Neal whispered to Kel and Owen as they washed dishes. "I thought Jump was better than that."

  "I don’t know," Kel remarked slowly. "It’s hard to hate anyone who likes dogs as much as my lord does."

  "Jump’s smart. He knows if Lord Wyldon thinks he came to see him, he won’t send him back," Owen pointed out. "He would if Jump looked to be following one of us."

  Whatever the dog’s thoughts, he kept up as easily as the sparrows while the pages and teachers rode south. The trees of the Olorun Valley gave way to broad green fields, then to drier country. The riders skirted the edge of the Great Southern Desert, turning east. The Bazhir lived in the desert and made it their own. In the southeastern hill country, people had warred with the Bazhir for generations. Sometimes they chose to get extra income by raiding into Tusaine and Tyra as well.

  "Don’t get your hopes up," Lord Wyldon said when the subject of hillmen arose over their third night’s campfire. "According to the local army commander, the area we’re visiting has been scoured of bandits. You’ll have to prove your courage against bears, hill lions, and the like."

  They finally made camp just north of a tributary of the Drell, the River Hasteren. By then they’d been riding for ten days and were glad to stop for a while. Kel was particularly careful to look after Peachblossom. The heat was hard on the big gelding, though she couldn’t say if it affected his mood. Peachblossom was always grumpy.

  They camped by a small pond that was cupped between hills and fed by a lively stream. Last year there had been a wooden building for shelter for the pages and a stable for their mounts, though Kel and Eda had slept in the open. This year everyone either put up tents or slept under open sky. Even those who chose to sleep without shelter had to prove to Lord Wyldon they could set up their tents quickly and well. Kel had three tries before the training master was satisfied. Neal had ten.

  "I hate tents," he grumbled as they went to gather firewood. "They smell funny and they weigh too much. I’d rather sleep under a tree."

  "You may change your mind when dark comes," replied Kel, amused. "That’s when the bugs will realize they don’t have to go to the inn to dine."

  They remained in that spot for a week. Game was scarce there. Lord Wyldon said he wanted to teach them, not spend teaching hours trying to feed them. They rode for a day and built a new camp.

  The next morning Lord Wyldon sent groups out in different directions to map terrain and to hunt for supper, each with a senior page in command. Kel was in Faleron’s company, along with Neal, Prosper of Tameran, Merric, Owen, and Seaver. Faleron, Merric, Neal, and Owen carried longbows; Kel and the others brought spears. If worse came to worst, they agreed, they could try spear-fishing in the broad creek they followed. Jump came, sniffing along the ground. The sparrows spread out as humans and dog hiked, looking for new and tasty seeds in the brush.

  The creek led them into a small, twisting valley edged on one side by sandstone cliffs. "Oh, Kel, look," piped Owen, "a height my lord hasn’t made you climb!"

  "From your lips to the gods’ ears, silly—hush!" Kel told her friend, cuffing him gently on the shoulder.

  "Hush," ordered Faleron. "You want to scare off all the game?"

  Being quiet as they headed into the valley saved their lives. Three hundred yards along, when they rounded a bend in the cliff wall, the pages found a raider camp. Had they been making noise, the outlaws would have been ready. As it was, Faleron gestured frantically for the pages to back up, but too late. A mangy dog howled the alarm; Jump snarled in answer. The hillmen, who’d been napping, scrambled to their feet.

  "Run!" yelled Faleron.

  They were a hundred feet down the valley when they heard the pounding of hooves. The bandits rode into view on ugly, rugged horses who looked every bit as mean as their masters. They swept out and around the pages, cutting off their escape route. Jump raced into the fray. He leaped and fastened his jaws on a rider’s arm, his weight pulling the man from the saddle. The horse reared, panicked by its master’s fall. Two men swerved to avoid them and collided, going down in a tangle of screaming horses. The sparrows arrived, chattering in rage as they flew into the raiders’ faces, attacking their eyes.

  "Jump, come!" screamed Kel. "Faleron, orders?"

  Faleron stared at the riders; his eyes flicked from those on the right to those on the left, uncertain. Kel turned to Neal as the oldest. He was as bewildered as Faleron. Kel looked at the others. Merric, Seaver, and Owen were staring at her.

  They had to act—the hillmen were closing in. "Neal, Prosper!" she yelled, naming the two with magical Gifts. "Blind ’em, hide us, confuse ’em, now! Bows! One shot, aim for the horses, then fall behind the spears!"

  She got her spear up and leveled it at the enemy as Neal blinked and shed his paralysis. Green fire poured from his hands, spreading in streams through the air. It bent and rippled, veiling the pages enough that the enemy couldn’t see them to target them. Prosper, their other mage, stared blankly at his spear. Kel grabbed it and yelled, "Now!"

  Light flared in front of Prosper, white edged with blue. It would blind anyone looking at him, or the people near him, briefly. "Bows," shouted Kel again as Jump scrambled through the dust to reach her.

  Faleron, Merric, and Owen set arrows to their strings and loosed as Kel glanced behind them. There was the cliff wall, just twenty feet to their rear. "Fall back to the cliff, bows and mages first, then spears!" she cried. "Who’s got the horn?"

  "Me," said Faleron, coughing from the dust. He took a swig from his water bottle, spat, and blew the alarm call, then set another arrow on his bowstring.

  Beyond the shifting haze of green and white lights that veiled them, Kel saw the hillmen draw back a little. Four of their number were down, maybe dead—three in the pileup Jump had caused, one with an arrow in his throat. Others were rubbing their eyes, flailing at the attacking sparrows, or squinting as they tried to see the pages’ exact location. Most were still mounted, except for one man who’d jumped clear of his arrow-shot horse. All were wary.

  A pair of bony and scarred dogs crept forward, bellies to the ground. The magic veils affected them less. Jump snarled a challenge.

  "Stay with me," Kel ordered him softly. To her unmoving friends she hissed, "Fall back! Bows and mages first. Get against the cliff—ar
chers, be ready to shoot!"

  This time they obeyed, Faleron pausing only long enough to blow the alarm call again. Kel whispered, "You’ll take command?" when he lowered the horn.

  Faleron shook his head. "You’ve got the cool head, Kel," he replied, then fell back with the other archers, Neal, and Prosper. Once they reached the cliff, Kel and Seaver backed up, spears lowered. Spears would keep the bandits at a distance if they chose to ride blindly through the magic; Kel’s archers could shoot easily if they were rushed. She doubted the stalemate could last, however. Through fading magic she saw that the hillmen were stringing the bows they had grabbed in the rush. Once they learned the magical barriers couldn’t stop arrows, the pages were in trouble.

  "Neal and Prosper, magic again. Hold it awhile!" she whispered.

  Green streamers rolled out of Neal, growing wider, forming scarves that moved in the air. Prosper again released a white blaze; how he kept the pages from being as blinded as the raiders Kel had no idea. From their lessons in the use of visible magic, she knew that he and Neal had obscured the area around them for about sixty feet. She could see that the squinting raiders had shifted to form a half-circle around them at a distance of about seventy feet. For all the enemy knew, the pages could be anywhere behind that curtain of moving light.

  Her brain raced: When would help come? Were they even within hearing distance of the camp? They had lost track of how far they had gone.

  "Kel, we’re at the cliff!" hissed Owen.

  She looked back. Now they had protection at their backs, but it was not much. Peering through the fiery shields again, Kel counted twenty-three raiders and gnawed her lip. The odds were bad. What she wouldn’t give for mages other than a healer and a light bringer! But they were what she had. She didn’t like to think how much of Neal’s and Prosper’s strength was going into those screens.

  Luckily for the pages, the raiders had no leader to coordinate their attacks and make them more dangerous. Just as good, they seemed to have no mages.