A Flight of Ravens by John Conroe (thriller books to read TXT) 📗

The frost on the glass windowpane caught my eye as I readied myself, and first I looked at it, studying the fingers of crystal ice, and then I looked through it to the world beyond.  There, way in the distance, were those very military fields of my memories. Immediately, my thoughts tumbled back to them.

“This morning, we will test your basic fitness and this afternoon, we will test your skills for combat, both armed and unarmed, then your horsemanship if you happen to have use of a horse and tack,” an army sergeant had told the assembled applicants. “At the end of the day, we will let you know who we will select this year.”

In times of peace, the kingdom’s military is very picky about who it recruits.  Those stringent requirements tend to be loosened a great deal whenever war breaks out.

Immediately after that little speech, the instructor led us through a grueling set of exercises, then on a ten t-span timed run, and immediately after that, he put us through a long, difficult obstacle course, also timed.

At midday, we were given a half hour to select a meal from a table of cheeses, breads, cold meat, apples, dried berries, and various nuts.

Based on Jella’s advice from the night before, I ate sparingly, keeping to just some bread and an apple, washed down with water.  Some recruits feasted like it was their final meal.   Jella’s warning turned out to be wise, as immediately after lunch, we were paired off and told to fight empty-handed until one of each pair submitted to the other. The winners were paired off again and the fights continued.  More than one contestant was forced to bow out because of stomach cramps.

At the end of the combat bouts, it came down to just me and a big kid from a farm near Haven.  My matches before this one had been fast and certain, but this time, I was up against a boy both bigger and older, who looked like he lifted cows all day, every day.

I had trained with father’s men-at-arms in battlefield grappling and hand-to-hand combat almost since I could walk, and had trained with Jella in the Drodacian combat art of wogando for the last two years. In the end, I won the contest, but it took three times longer than any other fight I’d had, mostly because the farm boy knew a surprising amount about unarmed combat. That skill, combined with his size and strength, made him by far my toughest opponent.  Add into that a very high tolerance for pain and I had almost had to break his right arm to get him to yield the fight.

“Great.  Both of you get some water and get back here.  We start sword and staff next,” the sergeant had said after the boy finally slapped the ground in surrender.

Walking over to the water barrel side by side, we didn’t say a word to each other.  At the barrel, I waved the other boy to drink first, which I think surprised the kid.  He drank and offered the dipper to me.  “I’m Ash,” he said.

“I’m Savid.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent in controlled contests of blunt sword and padded staff.  Ash was quite skilled with a quarter staff, fighting me to a draw three out of four times, but he knew next to nothing about swords.  By the end of the fighting, we had both acquitted ourselves well and simultaneously formed a rock-solid respect for each other.

“You did passable, apprentice,” Jella allowed when I finally rejoined her.  The day had been exhausting, but I ended up taking the top spots in both the armed and unarmed combat trials, came in fourth in the riding tests, and finished the timed run and obstacle course within the top ten times for each. My name had been called when they read the selected candidates, as had my new friend, Ash Newberry’s.

“Did you find out why the lord marshal is here?” I asked her.

She nodded and pointed across the field.  Kiven Armstrong was congratulating a large boy on his success.  When the boy turned sideways, I could see that it was Ash.

“The kid you’ve been buddies with all day is his nephew by his sister.”

“Which explains where he learned to fight.”

“Yup. He is the youngest son. His older brother will inherit the farm, so he has that in common with you as well. Kiven has no sons, just daughters, so he is very focused on his nephews.  All pig shit, if you ask me.  Girls can be much smarter fighters than men.  But I will admit that the boy has combat potential for certain,” Jella said, watching Ash.

Back in my now warm bedroom, the water in the pot was bubbling and I used a heavy leather glove to remove it from the crane and pour it into my caffe maker.  The mug filled with the deep brown beverage as my nose was filled with its rich fragrance.   Why had I woken up thinking about Ash? We had entered military basic together, then went through infantry training and finally, we were both selected for Ranged Reconnaissance.  From Basic to Despair, we stuck together, had each other’s backs, and learned a great deal from each other.  Ash had been my trusted second with every unit that I commanded, till he ran his own. And now Ash was missing, more than a month past due, and I was too much the realist to think I would ever see my friend again. I had searched for him and his murder the entire time, using all the resources of the Shadows as well as my own skills at Finding.  Nothing.  Two weeks ago, I had called it, adding his name to the roster of fallen RRS on the wall behind the bar downstairs.  I had spoken to his wife, now a widow, and begun the process of getting her death funds and her widow’s stipend.  Why was I still dwelling on him?

Draining