The Cursed Blood, стр. 63

against a much more conditioned and trained opponent. Again, Gramps’ words echoed in my head, and I knew what had to be done. Arjan seemed to know it, too.

He came at me savagely in another blur and ended up cursing loudly as I tossed the sand I’d grabbed and secreted in my hand as I was crouched into his eyes and dove to the side. Choking and whipping at his eyes he never saw my strike that toppled him like a chopped tree landing with a pronounced WACK off the side of his head. The Wolves Den went silent. You could hear a pin drop if Manx wasn’t panting and munching so loud on top of his matts.

I’d cheated. It was dishonorable and wrong and poor sportsmanship, yeah, I know. But guess what—I was standing, and he wasn’t and in combat that’s what matters. Gramps had drilled that into my head. The apprentices were furious, fists white knuckling on the grips of their wooden weapons as the whole lot looked like they wanted to rush me in a mob and beat me to a pulp for my antics.

“Get that waste ah’ air off me sand and stop bloody well embarrassing me ye’ pack of worthless shite stains!” The instructor bellowed to snap them out of their glaring, punctuating it with a smack of his cane rod onto his palm that sounded like the crack of a whip. Chen and a freckled boy I hadn’t sparred yet scurried forward and dragged their groaning, semi-conscious comrade out of the circle, glaring at me murderously the whole time.

“So, Artur hasn’t been lax in training you, eh lad?” Sgt. Blake chuckled, a wicked twinkle in his eyes even if his face was set in a perpetual frown. That bit of information had the other squire’s interest as they stared wide eyed from their Sergeant at Arms to me, especially Natalie who was eyeing me oddly as she cradled her hand to her chest.

“Yup, you useless pack of ingrates, standing before you is Darkling royalty… The grandson of Artur Von Bright himself,” Sgt. Blake explained in a sardonic tone that made the word royalty when pertaining to my family sound like something filthy and squirmy that needed to be stepped on.

The day wore on with me being run through the paces in martial drill, some of it I was good at—mostly the sword drills and target shooting at the Wolves Den’s underground range. The rest went just ok or abysmally and all summed up with the lot of us being marched exhaustedly to the mess hall, Manx at my heels.

All the squires save Natalie seemed to like the Witchound more than they liked me which was fine by me until they started prattling on about what they knew or had read about the infamous breed and then started up asking me questions on the subject.

Honestly, I just wanted a tall glass of coke and maybe a cheeseburger (and was fairly sure these things weren’t going to be on the menu but had resigned myself to chowing down on whatever was offered as hungry as I was), but the trip seemed all the longer with each of them arguing about breed specifics and such while my head was aching. I itched from the uniform I’d been provided and every part of me hurt from drills.

At that point I was pretty sure that every inch of me was covered in welts and ugly black and blue splotches with all the hits, tumbles, and thrusts it’d taken under Sgt. Blake’s and the instructor’s tender care. I had zero patience just then for debating dog haunches, breading lines, jaw strength, and shoulder breadth. Though Manx seemed to be drinking it all in, sickeningly even letting himself be petted and fawned over.

The mess hall, lit by humming lights that hung from the ceiling was a long low room lined with very familiar long, all in one bench tables that I’d seen in school. This only added to my unease as I remembered the antics I’d suffered through in the cafeteria so often over the years.

Even the frumpy looking old lunch ladies who stood behind a sneeze guarded glass lunch buffet table waiting to serve wielding ladles like clubs looked pretty much the same—bad perms, hair nets, blue long skirted uniforms, aprons, and grumpy demeanors. They saw us, then noted Manx and all three of the women’s eyes bugged comically as they nudged one another and gripped their ladles all the tighter.

Of the ten tables only two were occupied by older squires who watched us enter, hunched over their trays of food and cartons of milk like lions eyeing a heard of zebra to pick out the weakest one to gnaw on for lunch. The place went quiet as they stared, mostly at me and Manx with an unhealthy mix of interest, disdain, and something darker.

I sighed. Here we go again.

We lined up, picked up our prison trays from the stack and started to work our way down the line. I picked out a chocolate milk, apple, something called a mince pie, goopy looking steamed vegetables that were far more appetizing than the creamed corn, and a stale dinner roll I’m pretty sure I could bludgeon an Orc to death with in a pinch.

Meal in hand and stomach growling (either in horror and protest of what I was about to dump into it or in hunger, I can’t be sure) I shuffled off after my classmates to our table.

Well, it would have been our table if they had left me any room at it, rather they had decided to space themselves out just enough to make sure I was left out in the cold. Natalie offered me a mockingly sympathetic, impish smirk before taking a bite of an egg salad sandwich.

Wonderful.

I eyed an empty table and feeling all the mess hall’s eyes on me as well as my neck warming plopped down my tray and took a seat. Manx