Chapter 3. The Tests

They say they have come from a far place, and by the look of their ships it is true. They say they cannot return to the homes they left—political refugees, I think, though they do not explain. They ask to rent land, to work, even in the jungles. They seem to fear nothing. I feel pity for their little ones—such large, hungry eyes they have and garments so warn and tattered.

At your majesty’s behest, I granted them leave to live and work here. Yet, sire, I think it only fit to warn you: the older ones have hungry eyes too. I do not like the way they look at our mountains.

--Chief Minister of Lecklock Burrow in a letter to Emperor Nicholas, 34 years before the war

The wake up call came early. Talis had not thought to inspect her clothes the night before, but doing so now, she was convinced that her interrogators had cleaned her up, else she could not have smelled so fresh. Her green, long-sleeved, knee-length tunic was rumpled but reasonably clean, and her belt, which she’d hung on the bedpost while she slept, was complete with money pouch and dagger. She found at the foot of her bed her pack with everything she had brought to the Pendalons, including her sword. Whatever they wanted, they certainly weren’t interested in my gear, thought Talis.

She received her breakfast—baked roots, a bit of bird meat, and a hunk of bread with water—and ate it quickly in a corner. Then she followed the chattering throng, mostly of wood fauns, through a second barrack room and thence into one of five large auditoriums. On the way, she felt a gentle tap on the shoulder and turned to see a grinning male wolfling with chestnut hair and laughing brown eyes. “I see you woke up,” he said.

Talis nodded uncertainly. I’ve seen him somewhere…

“My name is Gillert of Mooncastle. I watched the fauns bring you in and put you on that bed. They said you had a rough time getting here.”

“Oh…” Talis vaguely remembered the wolflings she’d seen when she first woke up. “I’m Talis.”

“We wolflings are outnumbered here,” continued Gillert, raising his voice over the general babble, “so we’ve got to stick together.”

By this time the recruits had dispersed more or less evenly through the lecture rooms. A pegasus emerged through a door in the front wall and called for silence. Talis looked around and discovered rows of bamboo chairs behind her. In a few moments the recruits were seated and the talking subsided. The pegasus was a caramel-colored female, smaller than Linsy, but still formidable. "Greetings, friends. I trust that your first taste of Shavier hospitality was satisfactory?"

Grunts of approval. Talis was tempted to say otherwise, but she held her tongue.

"You have all come to serve in this war," continued the pegasus, "and serve, you shall. However, not all will serve the same function."

"When are we going to Clyperion?" shouted a faun.

"When you learn to respect your officers."

The faun flushed. "I only meant that we were told—“

"I know. Your training will begin in our capitol. However, before you get there we want you to understand what will be expected of you…and you must be sorted." She smiled. "Not all will make Aerial battle duty or even flight duty. Some of you will have ground tasks."

A rumbled of discontent filtered through the ranks. "We came here to fly..."

"You will all receive the payment to which you agreed," said the pegasus. That quieted them a little, but the frowns continued. The animal's eyes narrowed as she swept the group. "Flight is not a right, but a privilege...even for we with wings, more so for you without. In any case, I believe that most of you will be happy wherever you are assigned, for the judges try to choose the task for which you are best suited."

The pegasus took several steps up and down. "The tests which you are about to take are intentionally given before receiving any training. We want to see what we have to work with. In Clyperion you will receive training. Here you will simply be observed. Do you understand?"

Heads nodded.

"The tests are simple, and you needn’t feel nervous. The first is a flight session, the second a weapons test, the third a physical exam. Finally you will have a brief interview. That is all. We will now assign you numbers, and then you will be told where to go."

In spite of the speaker’s reassurance that the tests were a small matter, Talis's heart pounded as she received her number and followed the instructions for her set: through a hallway and several doors, to the end of a line of fauns on a ledge. Every few moments a pegasus appeared, bearing a recruit. After allowing his rider to alight, he exchanged a few words with a shelt who sat writing at a desk nearby, then ordered the next recruit onto his back and took off.

The flights were short, and Talis had just enough time to get really nervous before her turn came. She hurried forward, grabbed the base of the wing, and hoisted herself up. The pegasus paused a moment to glance back at her. "Done this before, have you?"

"Yes." Talis smiled. Coran had taught her to mount that way during their three days of travel. Most fauns mounted their deer by jumping on from behind, and wolves often ducked between their riders’ legs. Neither technique worked well with a towering pegasus. Perhaps Coran and Gwain gave me something useful after all, thought Tails, if I can impress this judge.

Talis tensed in anticipation as the pegasus turned towards the ledge. There was something intoxicating in flight that had held her spell-bound since she first tasted the wind from a pegasus’ back. Talis could feel the shift of the animal’s muscles beneath its feathery warmth—more powerful than any wolf or deer. The wings rose from the shoulders in front of her--massive clouds of white feathers that obscured her view to either side and nearly hid her.

Talis took a tight hold on the section of double thick, padded leather that made a figure eight beneath the pegasus’ ribs and around his neck “Don’t you want to get a handful of the main?” he asked playfully. Talis gave a nervous laugh. Coran had let her know promptly that pegasus didn’t like their mains pulled, but when she got nervous, she always wanted to get hold of the animal himself instead of the saddle strap.

“Just don’t do anything fancy,” she muttered.

He nickered and stepped to the edge. His wings opened, and suddenly Talis could see all around. Then came the surge as he vaulted into the empty air, a brief, sick sensation of falling, then the throbbing rush of the wings and a marvelously lightness...like a soap bubble in the wind.

* * * *

“Hey, Gil,” A wolfling edged next to Gillert in line for his flight test.

“Did you see that female?”

Gillert glanced at him. “Which one?”

“The one who came in this morning. Really dense white tail with black points, and big dark eyes…”

Gillert was shaking his head. “Couldn’t be as pretty as the one who came last night.”

“Oh? Have I seen her?”

“Probably not: shinny copper hair, bronze-gold eyes with gray flecks, cinnamon fur, skin the color of honey milk tea.”

His friend laughed. “You’re studying this one. What’s her name?”

“Talis.” Gillert smiled. “Her name is Talis.”

* * * *

The pegasus flew about half way across the canyon, then turned and flew down the middle going deeper into the mountains. He did a few maneuvers, including what he called a hard turn. This meant that one wing dropped towards the earth and the other shot to the sky. Only the speed of the turn to held Talis against him. In that moment she understood the reason for the two loops about paw height on either side of the saddle strap. She had never had occasion to use them with Coran since he had always flown level. Now she slipped her paws into them and hung on.

The wolfling kept her nerve and her seat. By the end of the ride, she had relaxed, and she was smiling when the pegasus dropped her at the ledge. Talis fancied he had enjoyed the flight himself and had kept her out longer than the others. She left the first test feeling pleased, her confidence returning. Linsy was right about one thing: my performance will be best if I stop thinking about the last few days.

Following the directions of the Shavier at the desk, Talis arrived in a large, high-ceilinged room with a balcony around the roof and circles about ten paces across painted in red at intervals along the floor.

Each circle contained two combatants, sparing with dulled practice swords and leather armor. Several Shavier judges were watching from the balcony. Again, there was a short line. Talis was less nervous this time, and she took the opportunity to assess the combatants herself. She decided that the majority of the fauns in the room were adequate swordshelts with at least foot soldier training. Sloppy, but it would keep them alive...for a while. She caught sight of the wolfling named Gillert, fighting with a wood faun. The faun was clearly receiving the worst of it, Gillert drawing the fight out, refusing to take his third point in spite of numerous opportunities. Amusing to him, thought Talis, but that faun looks angry enough to bite. Gillert is making an enemy.

A pegasus brought her abruptly out of her reveries. "Beta 37, please take circle 5. Equipment is over there against the wall. Thank you."

Talis hurried along the wall to receive her sparing sword and protective gear. The rules of the game were standard procedure for most shelts, and no one had bothered to explain. The combatants wore red cloth "points" about two finger's width across--one on the chest, one on the midsection, and one on the throat. The leather armor allowed a shelt's practice sword to flick the points away without serious injury to the opponent. To win, one had to remove all three.

Talis secured her armor and points, then chose a sword and turned back to the room. She could see a faun already standing in circle 5, flicking his sword about to loosen his wrist. As she approached, she realized that he was a swamp faun--a goat shelt with black fur and long, tufted tail. This surprised her. Swamp fauns had been enemies in the great war, siding with the wizard Gabalon against both wood fauns and wolflings. Their nation had been plunged to occupied status at their defeat, supervised by wood and cliff fauns. It had also been discovered that they had enslaved the cat shelts, called Fealiday. They had a bad reputation and were generally distrusted and disliked by all shelts, including other fauns.

Talis eyed her opponent curiously as she moved into the ring. He was of average height, but he carried himself in a way that made him look taller. He had small, blue eyes, dark hair (most swamp fauns had shiny black hair), and a long face with a mouth that seemed to turn perpetually down at the corners. He was wearing the green and black uniform of the swamp faun army. Not only that, but he looked to have been an officer. He's got some nerve, thought Talis, displaying that uniform here. He'll be lucky if a wood faun doesn't stab him in his sleep.

"Hello," she said curtly, "my name is Talis of Canadia. I understand that we're to spare."

The swamp faun turned and surveyed her with a baleful air. Then he glanced towards the Shavier supervisor several circles away. "You mock me, sir! Am I to prove my expertise on this?!"

The supervisor glanced at him briefly. "You're assigned partners at random. This is merely an opportunity for the judges to observe you in action. Now perform your test and move on."

The swamp faun’s nostrils flared. "Action?! You send me a spindly, half-grown female—a thing with paws—and you want action?"

Talis flushed to the roots of her hair. "How dare you! Do you know who I am?!"

The swamp faun refused to look at her, still appealing to the supervisor. "Sir, with all respect, a real combatant...anyone at all. One of those fauns perhaps."

"I could kill those fauns and you too in a real fight," flashed Talis. "I'm a Raider. Fenrah herself trained me."

The swamp faun appeared either not to have heard her or not to care. "Supremely insulting..." He was talking to himself.

Talis decided it was time to start the fight. She came in low and hard, thrusting her sword under his crossed arms, aiming at the point below his ribs.

The faun came alive with alarming speed. He blocked the thrust, blocked it very neatly, throwing her sword to his left, and bringing his own weapon in against her exposed midsection. He flipped the point away and whirled in fine form to reposition himself near the center of the circle. Talis slid back into a defensive posture before he could make another thrust. She was a little shaken. This one's got something to brag about. He'd like to do to me what Gillert did to that wood faun, but I won't be made a spectacle.

However, Talis was mistaken. The swamp faun had no desire to play with her. He attacked almost as soon as he'd repositioned, and she had to admit, bitterly, that he was superb. The sword flashed around her like a living thing. Don't let the opponent drive you, she remembered Fenrah saying, but she realized unhappily that she was doing just that.

He pushed her back to the edge of the circle, and it was all Talis could do to keep from stepping outside the red line--a point by default. The faun's face remained expressionless. He still had not given her one look which identified her as a rational creature. He looked through her, as one would look at a straw target, and he attacked in the same emotionless fashion.

Talis was furious. With the exception of the wood faun who’d shot her wolf, she had never wanted so much to kill a shelt. He got the second point within thirty seconds of the fight's beginning. "A waste," he murmured, "of my time and theirs."

Two, she thought, he's got two, and I haven't got one. How must this look to those judges? This swamp faun makes beating me seem like a cub's game!

The last point was the one on her throat, and he took it while knocking her out of the circle backwards. She caught herself on her hands, and her sword went rolling across the floor. Talis glared up at the swamp faun, whose sword lingered against her throat for a moment. "You are defeated," he spoke to her for the first time in the most impersonal of tones.

Then he turned and strode quickly away to dispose of his gear. Talis stared after him. She knew that she should feel admiration, but for the moment all she felt was pure hatred. I don't believe that I've ever encountered such an arrogant, pompous, self-satisfied buck-headed scrap of dear dung!

She could have gone on at length, but the supervisor called her to move for the next pair of combatants, and Talis obeyed, face red, clutching her weapon with white knuckles. She moved with deliberate slowness, ensuring that by the time she reached the gear racks, the swamp faun was long gone. I will beat that one someday, Talis vowed and then tried to rid her mind of the experience.

Fortunately the next test required little concentration. She moved through a line of shelts, performing a number of simple physical tests. They checked her teeth and her eyesight. They weighed her. They checked her feet and legs for defects. They assessed the quality of her fur.

Finally, she moved into a room full of cushioned chairs and waiting shelts. Here Talis caught up with the swamp faun. She did her best to ignore him until she realized that, not only was he totally indifferent to her, but he seemed to have forgotten who she was. This threw Talis into an even greater fury, and she sat and sulked while about half the room emptied and half again came in.

When the swamp faun was called and finally out of her sight, Talis began to relax. Most of the wood and cliff fauns in the room were talking quietly. A number of wolflings were also in conference in one corner. Talis debated joining them, yet she lingered. Spread across one wall of the room was an elaborate map of the Pendalons from the desert in the south to the ocean in the north. On the opposite wall were two pictures—one of a pegasus and a mounted Shavier, the other of a griffin and mounted Grishnard. The detail and texture of the paintings fascinated Talis, and she rose to examine them.

On the map she could see the Orelion Pass, her present location, on the southern edge of the mountain range. The pass looked small, yet Coran had told her that it was the only safe place to enter the Pendalons for many leagues. Talis remembered the curious note of respect in his voice as he had explained. “The mountains rise high even this close to the desert. A pegasus cannot hope to fly over them.”

Talis had been confused. “Why? I thought you could fly anywhere…”

“Any place where there’s air,” said Coran. “But up there, the air is thin. We would literally fall from the sky.”

“But surely there are other places besides the Orelion Pass where you could enter the mountains…?”

Coran shook his head. “For the adventurous, perhaps. However, winds in the Pendalons are strong and often unpredictable. No other pass is so broad, with so mild a down draft.”

Talis frowned. Coran wasn’t exactly friendly, but he was never unkind. Did he really intend all along to make me courier for stolen papers? Did he know that the Shavier might kill me when they found out? Talis felt angry with the spies, but more so with herself. I will not be so easily tricked again.

Moving north on the map, she examined the mountains themselves—a jumble of peaks and valleys, peppered with a bewildering assortment of names that conveyed nothing to her. On the far side of the range, almost on the edge of sea Talis saw one name that was familiar: Clyperion. Talis could see that it was made of a central hub of a mountain peak with one lesser peak to the north.

Farther out in the sea she saw something else--a peninsula east of Clyperion. It curled like a hooked beak, creating a large bay. Near the tip, separated by a narrow canal, was an island, almost directly north of Clyperion. The peninsula was mountainous and the name beside it said Lecklock. Grishnard territory, remembered Talis. The island was Labrador Hall, their capitol.

Talis strolled across the room to the painting of the pegasus and griffin. She had read everything she could find on the Pendalons before her coming, but she’d seen few pictures and no living griffins. So this is the creature who’s caused all the trouble. Talis examined lithe, feline body—tawny gold like a lion, the eagle’s head with the wickedly curving beak. His wings were low and half spread in the picture, as though he intended to take flight suddenly. The Grishnard shelt who sat on his back had the same golden fur and paws, a long, tufted tail, and he wore loose pants like the Shavier. The griffin was only about two thirds the height of the pegasus, and Talis wondered if the pictures were drawn to scale. The Grishnards came from across the sea, Talis remembered. They invaded the Pendalons, and now they want to make a country for themselves in the mountains, which have been Shavier territory for hundreds of years.

She stared at the fierce-looking beast. I wonder why they came?

At that moment a Shavier called her number. Talis took a deep breath and went in to her interview.