Zhair'lo had never realized that the Hunters actually practised standing still. It seemed stupid until you actually tried to do it. Then you realized how difficult it was and the necessity of practising it.
He stood in the middle of a vast grassy field, youngest of the new recruits to Lyric's camp, keeping as still as possible.
As Lyric walked among the two rows of young men, they stood stiffly at attention, their eyes fixed on the horizon, blinking only rarely.
Zhair'lo realized that he had nothing to think about except every blink, every gulp, and every itch on every part of his body. The sun beat down, boiling away sweat as fast he could produce it. The odours of the recruits soaked into the air around him.
"When you are in the forest, hunting your prey," Lyric called out as he prowled between them. "You may sit in a blind for several bells."
He stood directly in front of one of the older men, examining that man's face for a betraying tick.
"A branch broken by a single false step can scare that prey off," Lyric went on, moving to the next man. "Flightier prey will run at the slightest rustle of leather."
Lyric came to stand in front of Zhair'lo, looking down on him. He didn't have the sheer frightening bulk of Harzen or Kurran, but Zhair'lo had seen Lyric move when he was in a hurry. If Lyric, whip thin and a head taller than Zhair'lo, wanted to take him down, he knew he wouldn't see it coming.
There was a pause as Lyric continued to stare at Zhair'lo and Zhair'lo pretended to stare straight through the Master Hunter's chest.
Was he sensing disapproval? Lyric's face seemed as emotionally dead as ever, but he was lingering on Zhair'lo much longer than he had on anyone else.
'Am I the inappropriate child, as I was at Harzen's Farm?'
Was he a burden to be trained? An undersized man, unable to do the work of the others?
Or was it jealousy? He knew he'd done better on the Test than many others. Did Lyric hate him for that? That seemed petty for such an important man.
Lyric let out a breath that wasn't quite a sigh before turning on his heel and walking to a position in front of the two groups. Slowly, he turned back to face them.
In a quiet voice, which was all the more effective for their stillness, he spoke.
"Notch your arrows," he said.
There weren't any targets in sight, just eight men with bows and quivers standing in the middle of an open field. The order to notch their arrows was, he concluded, not about shooting.
Zhair'lo pulled an arrow from his quiver and set the notch on the string of his bow. The arrow was pointed at the ground. In the periphery of his vision, he noticed that the rest of the men -- all more experienced that he -- were doing the same. That meant he'd interpreted the order correctly.
Lyric walked through the two lines and took a place standing behind them.
"Stand and draw," he ordered, quietly as before.
Numerous feet moved and bows rose with the strings pulled back. The two lines were staggered, so Zhair'lo and the other men in the back row weren't pointing their arrows at the backs of the men in front.
Lyric walked behind them, correcting their stances, adjusting their grips and offering sharp criticism.
"Xalish," he said with the slightest touch of disappointment. "Your vanes are backwards again."
Zhair'lo checked his arrow. He'd gotten that much right at least.
"Da'ren," Lyric said. "How will you possibly shoot true with your arrow on the wrong side of your bow?"
Zhair'lo's arm was starting to ache. Holding a bow and arrow in the drawn position couldn't possibly be harder than all the shovelling he'd been doing at Harzen's Farm. It was just a very specific group of muscles that were being worked here.
Lyric worked his way across the two lines, alternating between those in the front and the back while never passing in front of a notched arrow.
He came to Zhair'lo last, at the end of the back row.
"Decent stance," he remarked. "Widen the legs a bit ... good."
Zhair'lo's arm was beginning to shake.
"Steady," Lyric said, continuing his examination. "Correctly notched."
He stepped back to a place behind both rows.
"And relax," he ordered, calm as ever. "Stow your bows."
On their backs, orthogonal to their quivers, was a sheathe for holding their bows. It was into these sheathes that they slid their bows.
"Six laps around the field," Lyric ordered. "Last one back does seven. Go!"
This last was shouted, spurring them into action.
'I don't care how big you all are', Zhair'lo thought. 'I won't be last.'
-----------===================-------------
Sunlight, filtered by the steamy glass, slanted in from the highest west facing windows of the gigantic pool house. In the main pool, dozens of nude women quietly swam from one side to the other, stretching sore muscles or just relaxing. In a small, sunken bath off to the side, a young girl watched the surface of the water in front of her as sunlight reflected off the nearly still water into her eyes.
Tina broke the surface of the water with her face to the ceiling so her hair would set itself back. She waded over to Talla.
"Was that really wise?" she asked doubtfully.
"Trust to courage," Talla quoted haughtily.
"That's for sex," Tina said of the axiom. "They tell us that for when he lose our virginities, so we'll be brave and take the lead."
"It's for women," Talla replied firmly. "It can apply in any part of life."
Tina tilted her head back and forth thoughtfully.
"Fair enough. But can you trust Illya to carry our messages?"
"It's all we have," Talla pointed out, her voice still calm. "Would you prefer scrolls?"
"No," Tina said with wide-eyed honesty. "Why do you trust Illya?"
"Because she hates them, too," Talla said. "I saw that look in her eyes. I saw the way she stuck her chest out at them."
"So?"
"So?", Talla echoed, adding a layer of interrogation to Tina's question. "Didn't you feel it?"
