Beneath the watchful gaze of the four Fighters, each of their silhouettes showing a sword hilt over their shoulders, Zhair'lo quickly packed everything that was his in the backpack they'd given him. He didn't have much in the way of personal belongings and he didn't know anyone who did. Still, there were a few things he wasn't going to leave behind.
Because not only would those two pairs of women's underwear raise questions, they were also treasures. The first pair was Talla's, left behind the very night the two of them had lost their virginities to each other. The second tiny, white triangle had belonged to Illya and held its own significance.
Each of those articles of clothing were folded up tightly and tucked into the pair of shorts in the deepest part of his single drawer dresser. It was easy, even under the eyes of the men who stood behind him, to secret everything together into the backpack.
Zhair'lo turned to face the man who had pounded on his door.
"That's it?" the man asked in his gruff voice.
"Yes."
"Yes, sir," gruff voice corrected.
"Yes, sir," Zhair'lo straightened.
"My name is Sergeant Yung. I'll be in charge of training you and the other recruits. Two of them are waiting outside. We have a fourth to pick up and then we'll go find the women."
Sergeant gestured toward the hallway, past the man who was holding the door open.
"All you need to know for now is that you do as I say and you call me 'sir'."
"Yes, sir."
The large man nodded, a wry grin on his face.
Zhair'lo formed so many impressions of Sergeant Yung so quickly that it was hard to sort them all out. Obviously, he wasn't a guy who messed around. His demeanour made Kurran, Kenji and every Master for whom Zhair'lo had ever worked seem like a gentle sheep. Yung had that same dark look in his eyes that Master Lyric got when he talked about his past, only he seemed to carry it as a permanent fixture to his personality.
Sergeant Yung also had no desire to impress anyone. The way he stood, spoke and even the way that he waved his hands around demonstrated a simple, self-assured confidence. He trained people to fight and was damned good at it. There was no need to bluster because he was utterly certain that his competence would speak for him.
The walk down to the empty common room wasn't long enough for Zhair'lo to analyze the man any further than that. They were soon out in the cool night air with two more Fighters and two dazed, sleep deprived boys who had to be the other recruits. They were older than Zhair'lo, but only by a couple of years.
Sergeant Yung briskly introduced them as Renzi, a worried-looking, blonde haired kid about ready to puke, and Kit, a boy with hair a bit darker than Zhair'lo's, who seemed wearily resigned to putting up with whatever they had to do tonight. In contrast to the Fighters, neither of Zhair'lo's fellow recruits had the energy to give him more than a nod of greeting.
It turned out that Fighters didn't walk anywhere - they ran. Renzi, by dint of his nausea, was least prepared for this. Kit seemed to be in okay shape but didn't have Zhair'lo's ease on his feet. The small group quickly passed the women on their way back to the Temple. Deirdre caught his eye very briefly, and twinkled a faint, worried smile at him.
Sergeant Yung and his men found it easy to talk, even while Renzi and Kit were panting with exhaustion. Their banter, however, was of little use to Zhair'lo as it consisted mainly of arcane terms that made no sense to him. They seemed to be comparing the benefits of various weapons, ranging from swords and axes to bladed staff weapons and such. Zhair'lo had no idea what a "flail" or a "maul" might be, but these terms were of great interest to the sword-carrying men, so he filed them away in his head for later reference.
As time passed, Renzi and Kit stumbled less. Their breathing was as laboured as ever, but they had otherwise resigned themselves to their fates.
Zhair'lo, what with one thing and another, had long ago adjusted to running great distances and had a lot more brainpower available for considering his surroundings. For one thing, he quickly realized that the conversation around him was a bit of a put-on; a show for the recruits. There was a faint pretence that the larger men were ignoring the three who straggled along behind them, but Zhair'lo knew that was nonsense. The goal was to put them in their place by showing them how weak, ignorant and inconsequential they were. It was as if the fighters were saying, "This is your life now. You need to become like us. You have a long way to go."
Zhair'lo felt himself absorbing their diction and manner, just as he had at Lyric's camp and Harzen's farm before it. He would find out what made these people tick and learn it well enough to imitate; to take it into himself. That was the way the Temple had forced him to operate, moving from one place to another as often as he had. If Zhair'lo hadn't been good at sliding himself so neatly into so many different communities, he never would have lasted so long nor done so well. He felt assured that he could do with these men what he had done with every previous group.
It wasn't long before the entire entourage came to a stop outside a blacksmith's shop.
Two of the Fighters, the dourest pair of the lot, stayed outside and kept a watchful eye on the alleys and approaches to their current position.
The wary way that they scanned their surroundings set a chill running down Zhair'lo's spine and settling in the pit of his stomach. These men were so accustomed to violence and danger that they wouldn't let their guards down even in the confines of the city. What danger was there here? When had anyone ever worried about an assault inside the limits of Gern?
Zhair'lo realized there was nothing logical about their behaviour. It was entirely an instinct.
'And I'm going to end up like them.'
After a moment, he forcefully amended his thinking.
'I want to end up like them.'
This was his way forward. He reminded himself that the decision had already been made.
One of the watchful men, Zhair'lo didn't know either of their names, cast a cynical gaze over Kit and Renzi, leaning on their knees and panting. The man's eyes slid over the ground and found Zhair'lo standing upright. Though breathing heavily, at least Zhair'lo wasn't doubled over and looking ready to vomit.
"You run a lot?" the man grunted even as his eyes returned to their paranoid scanning.
"Some," Zhair'lo set his tone to match the other's gruff terseness.
The Fighter nodded with what might have been a faint whiff of approval.
"You'll run more."
After that curt exchange, the boys might as well have turned to smoke and vanished into the night air for all the attention the older men paid them.
Zhair'lo thought it might be a good time to talk to his fellow recruits. Renzi was in no shape to talk, but Kit seemed to be catching his breath.
"Hey."
"Hey," the darker haired boy acknowledged.
"Feeling better?"
"A little."
"Where'd they get you from?"
Kit took a deep breath before gasping out an answer.
"Bakery. West end."
Zhair'lo wondered if the short, almost rude way that Fighters spoke to each other was a stylistic choice or just a force of habit from being out of breath.
"How long you ... been Hunting?" Kit asked.
"Not long," Zhair'lo said. "Was out at a Farm before that."
Renzi perked up at this. His face had gone from pale green to a flushed red.
"Men's work, that is," he muttered. "What else you do before that?"
Because, obviously, boys started working at age twelve and "men's work" couldn't start until eighteen.
"Blacksmith," Zhair'lo said. "Roofing. Some others."
"Get around a lot, then," Kit seemed impressed.
"Yeah."
Zhair'lo knew the smattering of apprenticeships he'd been through was unusual, but most of his age mates reacted to the idea with confused shrugs. It was clear such an education wasn't desirable. The odd time, Zhair'lo would get a sense people looked askance at his competence. From a certain point of view, he wasn't building up a repertoire of skills but failing to measure up at everything he did.
Zhair'lo made sure such points of view never lasted long. At every job, he set out to prove to his detractors that he was capable of whatever tasks they set before him. The moment he reached any level of competence, however, he would find himself whisked off somewhere else.
Renzi's attitude was something different from any reaction Zhair'lo had experienced in recent memory. The boy actually seemed to be upset. Until the advent of his discovery as a Seal Breaker, there had never been anything in Zhair'lo's life that would inspire someone to any of the varying shades of green between envy and jealousy.
But Renzi couldn't know that Zhair'lo was a Seal Breaker, could he?
Zhair'lo had never had to endure any negative feelings over his particular talent at transferring magic. It hadn't been discovered until he was among much older men at Harzen's Farm, where maturity had surely prevented such pettiness.
The path of Zhair'lo's thoughts was interrupted when Sergeant Yung burst suddenly out of the front door of the blacksmith's shop.
"Alright, boys," he commanded as his entourage emerged into the street behind him. "It's time to go fetch our women."
"This one's Z'rus," he jerked a thumb at a wide-eyed, red faced boy behind him. "These are Renzi, Kit and Zhair'lo. Now let's move!"
Renzi cast one last, foul look at Zhair'lo before the whole bunch were off and running again. Now that he was fully and properly awake, with the brisk night air filling his lungs, Zhair'lo had even less trouble keeping up with the Fighters and had enough energy to spare to pay more attention to them.
The two dull ones who had stayed out in the street earlier were running slightly ahead of the pack, carefully scanning every side alley, awning, crate and open doorway. The conversation, which was little different from before, now appeared to be even more meaningless.
The Fighters, Zhair'lo realized, weren't paying attention to what they were saying. It was a form of hollow banter, much like the friendly way little boys had of insulting each other. It took no brainpower because the attacks and replies were so well known to everyone involved. Their intellectual devotion was, instead, on the environment around them and the dangers it offered.
What dangers, though, he couldn't say. It must have been a long bred instinct that drove them thusly. Would they let their guards down as they came to the very gates of the Temple?
Apparently, they would not.
Instead, the six men formed up in to two neat rows of three in front of Form's small gate. The front row, with Sergeant Yung in centre, stood stiffly facing the gates. In the back row, the two dull men faced outward, scanning the approaches.
Technically, there was a third row even further back, but it seemed a bit of an insult to count the four desperately panting boys as part of the assembly.
Having taken these positions without so much as whispered order, the men simply waited, Hunter-like, for whatever would happen next.
