"Competence is an over-rated virtue, as anyone who fights alongside our heralded Imperial Guard will tell you. There is no problem, no obstacle, no challenge that cannot be overcome through the combined efforts of the incompetent. If you have failed to strike your target then the issue isn't the lack of precision but an insufficiency of volume."

- 'An Introduction to Joint Operations', Prime Grandmaster of Temples, Gidyon Locke

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Once Manchurian and Lancet had made themselves scarce, Dire took stock.

Some of the Drill Abbots, he might have approached directly and just asked them for a portion of sugar. They worst he might get was a cuff on the ear. But Mongrel had earned his nickname. He was moody and irrational. He didn't play favourites, for sure, but only because he was equally unpleasant and brutal to every progenius who crossed his path.

With great care, hugging the shadows, Dire approached his door and reached for the handle. If was a latch style, with a lever on the handle to press, lifting the other end from a hook inside the room. There was a hole in the latch that Dire could see, now he was there, for a padlock or similar to secure the room properly. But there was no other keyhole, and the padlock space was empty. As Manchurian had said, the room was not locked.

But latches had a tendency to stick and then, when they gave ground, they would snap noisily from their cradle. So it was with the gentlest of pressures that Dire depressed the handle, wincing as he felt it pop free with a faint click. He paused and looked left and right along the corridor again, seeing nothing but the vague shapes of his co-conspirators at the next junction before he pushed the door open.

At first, it opened easily, but then scraped on the uneven boards on the far side, forcing him to freeze. He could hear nothing from the darkness beyond - there was no light at all in the little room - and so he squeezed his narrow frame into the gap he had opened.

Had it been a larger room, he would have made it through, but the small storeroom had shelves immediately inside the door, forcing him to push the portal wider, inch by inch, with the pressure of his thin chest and belly as he squeezed his way in. And, once he was through, he paused, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom, to take in what he saw. He had been wrong that there was no light. A pair of thin windows at the far end admitted the tiniest amount of illumination from the world beyond the walls of the Schola that was just enough to make out the shapes of the room.

It was as Manchurian had described: shelves on both sides, stacked high with all kinds of things - old text books and piles of broken slates, tins and cans of mysterious provenance, boxes and crates aplenty. And, just a couple of paces in, a space set up with a field kettle, a tin mug and several bowls - powdered recaff, some fragrant herbs he didn't recognize and, if the white crystals glittering were an clue, the sugar that he needed.

Suddenly, from outside the room and through the still-open door, Dire heard the sudden and unmistakable sound of two young progenii attempting to stage a noisy mock fight! He hadn't signaled them! What was happening?

He realized instantly that someone had to be on their way along the corridor - Mongrel, or some other authority figure who would inevitably see the open door and investigate.

Dire grabbed the whole sugar bowl and turned to the door, planning to make his exit while the threat was distracted by his friends. But even as he did so, a fresh noise arose behind him and he turned in horror to see the shape of Drill Abbot "Mongrel" Mungelion heaving himself from his slumber in the depths of his private storeroom. Stuck between the unknown threat outside and the very clearly known threat on the interior, Dire dropped to his knees and compressed himself as tightly as he could between the stacks of supplies on the shelf behind him. To his intense personal surprise, he found a prayer forming in his mind even as he did so.

Mongrel grunted in annoyed surprise at finding the door open and yanked it wide, stamping out into the corridor, and Dire could see his window of opportunity rapidly closing. Squeezing himself out of his hiding space, precious cargo of sugar clutched in his left hand, he quickly slipped out through the door behind Mongrel, turning away from the junction where Manchurian and Lancet had been making their racket (already vanishing away back towards Chimaera). He slid into the deep shadow beneath the socket occupied by a dim and fluttering glow globe and tried to calm his pounding heart, certain it was beating hard enough to echo in the empty corridor as Mongrel stalked back to his lair, muttering curses under his breath.

There was no sign of anyone else or any hint of what had caused his allies to suddenly ignore his instructions. But it had to be almost Last Chime, so there was little time to waste. Holding the little sugar bowl as discreetly as he could manage, Dire peeled himself away from his hiding place and strolled nonchalantly back to Chimaera.

*

Only slightly out of breath, he raised a fist, then paused, counting down the seconds. As he waited, the fluttering whirr of mechanical wings could be distantly heard as the putti emerged from their dormancies. The cybernetic creatures looked like winged toddlers, modified to obscure purpose by tech-chirurgeons of the Ministorum, operating under strict licence of the Mechanicus. Some said that their tiny forms were grown in vats for this specific purpose. Others, that they were made from the corpses of infants who didn't survive the depredations of the Schola's dank crèche. Either way, they were a chilling reminder that the Imperium would put you to use however it saw fit. The putti were messengers and heralds, compelled to their duties by electro-cogitators that responded to the world around them in mysterious - almost mystical - ways, and they tended to cluster around the powerful and influential. Very rarely, a senior progenius might be marked for future greatness by the appearance of a tiny winged shadow, ever-lurking nearby. Or so it was said, anyway. Dire had never seen a putto so much as bother to cast a glance at a progenius and, frankly, he was glad of it. They were unspeakably creepy.

However, their arrival was accompanied by the tinkling sound of tiny bells emanating from the speakers of their mouths. It was Last Chime, when all progenii were expected to be abed. And yet, here he was at the door of a senior with a gift of sugar and the promise of a beating.

He knocked.

The door opened almost instantly and Poldue stood there, hand extended.

For a split instant, Dire had the momentary illusion that Poldue was making a peace offering, before he realized what was expected. He placed the stolen sugar bowl into Poldue's hand.

The senior turned into his room. It was a space at least twice the size of the cell shared by Dire and his allies, occupied by a single bed, a desk and chair, a wardrobe and some sort of travel chest. This evening it was also occupied by for other seniors, lounging about on the furniture. On the desk, a field kettle - a collapsible device that could boil water with the insertion of a standard lasgun battery - was billowing stream among a small cluster of mismatched cups and mugs.

Poldue placed the sugar bowl down.

'You see, fellows,' he said in a studied drawl, 'I told you a fourth floor could get it with the right motivation. Come in, Dire.'

The younger progenius crossed the threshold into the dark space. There were no windows, but a gas fire burned in a grate beneath a narrow chimney and Dire, who had lain half-frozen in his bed every night for as long as he could remember, hated and envied Poldue for his privilege. But between the fireplace and the half-dozen bodies in the small room, it was almost oppressively hot and Dire, heart still not entirely calmed since his flight from Mongrel, immediately began to feel the sweat break on his neck and forehead.

Poldue lifted the sugar up for general inspection.

'Would you say, Mister Barasamov,' said Poldue, addressing one of his fellow sixth floorers who visibly perked up at the attention, 'that this represents a medium-sized bowl of sugar?'

Barasamov leaned forward, eager to play his part in the drama. With elaborate concern, he inspected the object in Poldue's hand.

'Well,' he said after due consideration, 'I suppose one might concede that the bowl itself was of medium size, Mister Poldue.'

'But the serving of sugar, Mister Barasamov,' Poldue pressed him, pushing the door shut behind Dire. It closed with a click of its latch. 'Would you say that the serving was of a medium size?'

'Observing said bowl, which we have agreed is medium sized, Mister Poldue, it is clearly only half full,' went on Barasamov. He was a meaty young man, with the selection of facial scars - one still healing, with gross black stitches from his chin to the side of his nose - that indicated one bound for the Frateris Templars. Not as tall as Poldue, but broader at the shoulder. The air of reflective intellectualism he was adopting for Poldue's sadistic play-acting was an unconvincing part for his dull features and loose chin. 'Surely a half-full, medium-sized bowl could not be said to be a medium serving.'

'In Junior Dire's defence,' Poldue picked up. 'I did enjoin him to bring to me a medium-sized pot of sugar, specifying only the size of the pot and not explicitly the quantity of sugar.'

'Semantics!' cried another of the gathered audience; his thin face and deep-set eyes making him look positively skeletal in the flickering light of the fire. 'The reprehensible and cowardly defence of the miscreant!'

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'You're right, Simeon!' cried Poldue, turning back to Dire. 'Reprehensible and cowardly in the very words of the Arch-Confessor Leonides Harum the Third himself. But how does the accused answer?'

Dire slowly raised his hand, cautiously as if afraid it might be sliced off even for daring to move.

'Speak, boy,' snapped Poldue. 'I cannot wait to hear what dull light you might shine upon these proceedings.'

'I b-believe Harum also s-said that the court had discretion to discern i-intent under cases of such s-semantic argument,' he put forward. It was a memorable case, well studied by the progenii for two important reasons, the first being that the Arch-Confessor had been an alumnus of this very Schola, whilst the other was that the trial itself - of the Lieutenant Governor of this world, Gratian Capellus IX, for a failing to meet its tithing obligations to the Adeptus Ministorum - had been held in the High Chapel of the Schola. So holy was the largest and most central of the Schola's many places of worship considered that progenii below the fifth floor weren't even permitted to enter its antechamber court, and only students of the Finishing School were invited to routine worship within its walls.

In this case in particular, whilst the Lieutenant Governor had abided by the strict wording of the tithing obligations, it had been obvious to all concerned that he had done so to absolutely minimize the value of the world's contribution to the Ecclesiarchy's coffers. He had been acquitted of fraud, but found guilty of heresy and burned alive. Such was Imperial law.

Poldue fixed Dire with the look of a man who had just seen a rat perform a jig.

'Go on, Dire,' he said.

'If y-you were to argue a sem-mantic defence, then we sh-should look at the r-result,' he replied, nodding at the bowl. 'A m-medium-sized bowl containing only a s-single grain of sugar would have s-semantically met your instructions. S-so a bowl e-even half-full must be c-considered a r-reasonable attempt at f-fulfilling n-not just the letter of the l-law but also its spirit.'

He stammered to a halt. Many of the Drill Abbots and his fellow progenii had thought to try to beat his speech impediment from him with sticks and fists and, on one occasion that still caused him nightmares, a leather whip. Oddly, none had succeeded. And it only manifested when he had to talk to an authority. Perhaps, he thought, if he could rise to a place where he had no superior authority, it might finally leave him.

Silence greeted him. Then, after a second, one of the other boys - one who was yet to speak - began to clap.

'By Cedric's Holy Bones, Poldue, he's got you there!' he chortled from his position perched upon the desk, next to the field kettle. 'Now, are we going to have some redweed while you fix his intemperate face, or are you going to drag out this farce for another five hours?'

The speaker couldn't see the change of Poldue's expression as he stood with his back to the boy on the desk, but Dire could see the rage leap to his eyes and the tension run like lightning from his shoulder to his fist and, in the next instant, he had whirled upon the offender, seizing him by his collar, pushing him back across the table, scattering the collection of cups and shoving aside the hot kettle, heedless of the risk of the boiling water.

Despite the swift violence of his assault, Dire noticed, the sugar bowl remained steady and un-spilled in his upturned left palm.

'Do you think violence is the beginning and end of all discipline, Victor?' he all but shrieked in the face of his target. Dire was impressed that, surprised as Victor had been by the assault, there was no sign of fear on his face.

'Throne above, Poldue,' Victor sneered. 'I'm just here for the tea. Beat him. screw him or dismiss him. I don't give a shit if it just means a hot, sweet drink.'

Poldue held his grip for a few seconds, then released it, backing away slightly as Victor adjusted his collar and re-set the disordered cups.

'Yes,' said Poldue, setting down the sugar bowl at last. 'You're right, of course. At the end of all things, what is discipline but a show? It's a show not just for the untethered, heaving masses whose souls are driven to the right course by the strength of our mailed fists, but also for our peers and our betters. A display of our own, unwavering and unchallengeable loyalty.'

He turned back to Dire.

'For such an awful physical specimen of a progenius, Dire, you have a commendable discipline,' he said.

'Are you not going to beat him, then?' asked the boy called Simeon, his dark eyes flashing from within their deep sockets.

'No, of course I'm going to beat him, Simeon,' retorted Poldue. 'The rabble must feel the touch of the lash often and regularly if they are to retain their fear of it. Authority unexercised is authority wasted. But -' He turned to Dire. '- perhaps this is evening's entertainment should be more along the lines of education than chastisement. I might have underestimated this one. Sugar in his hands, honey on his tongue, and black thoughts of violence in his eyes...'

'One punch, then, Poldue!' called out Barasamov, as Victor poured the tea, carefully spooning a single helping of sugar into each. 'One punch only. What would you do? A single blow to assert your authority. How do we best go about it?'

Now Dire had the measure of the act. It looked like mercy, to reduce a full beating to a single punch. But such things were an art in the mind of a true sadist. The right punch, in the right place, could be more painfully crippling than a whole thunderstorm of lesser strikes. The correct balance of agony, humiliation, disorientation and damage was a subtle and nuanced judgement. Poldue might not be a commissar yet, but he would be a cadet of the Departmento Munitorum soon enough and the Schola had done a fine job of moulding him into the shape that his eventual service would only harden into the form it had already taken on.

Poldue accepted a cup of tea from Victor while looking Dire up and down.

'The chest and the limbs are right out,' he said, pondering. 'Limbs are good if you have a weapon. To crush a finger or slice a hamstring are both fine options depending on whether one wants the subject to be able to fight immediately after and for how long you want them to scream. The chest is good for an instant response - drive the breath from the lungs to interrupt the act of sedition or heresy - but it ultimately requires a more painful follow-up for the lesson to be truly understood.

'The back offers the kidneys as targets, as well as the liver if one drives sufficient power into the attack, but a prepared target will tense and reduce the penetration of the strike. They are best reserved for when a target has relaxed and thinks nothing will come. Dire isn't so foolish as to expect to leave this room unstruck, are you Dire?'

He shook his head, mute.

'This leaves the neck and the head,' Poldue went on. 'The throat is fine if you want to kill the target. To watch a seditionist die gasping for air through a ruined larynx is righteous indeed. But for all that he is a worthless fourth floor, I don't actually want to kill young Dire.'

'He did bring us sugar, after all,' said Victor, blowing happily at the brim of his cup.

'So it looks like we're left with the face. And from that we can discount the crown - too thick to be painful - and the nape, which is as likely to hurt the puncher as the punchee...

'Well, Dire, it looks like I'm forced to concede that Junior Codzecher made a reasonable choice.'

Codzecher was a fourth floor and the progenius who had given Dire his current set of facial bruises. He was a pig-headed, ignorant monster who thrived on violence. He was, therefore, inevitably destined for the officer corps of the Templars. Dire hated him less for the regular beatings he dished out upon Dire and everyone else smaller than him who couldn't turn to some protection, than he did for the heedless and clumsy way he went about it.

Poldue was a despicable sadist, no question. But his was a sadism with purpose. His future lay upon the battlefields of the Imperium, driving the rabble of the Imperial Guard forward into the teeth of death and destruction. Poldue would, most likely, die in some heroic act of self-sacrifice... if he weren't first murdered by his own troops, of course.

Codzecher was just a tool of the Ministorum who would murder and pillage his own people for the glorification of a dead god.

'The point at which the zygomatic and the maxilla meet is a point of weakness in the face of the adult human - and, as a matter of fact, in that of the greenskin ork, or so I'm told.' Poldue crouched down enough to look Dire in the face, as he traced the tender bruising of his left cheek and ran his thumb down the point beneath Dire's eye to indicate the point he was talking about. 'I wouldn't want my colleagues here to think that I was weak, of course. Or that I needed the benefit of the loathsome Codzecher's prior work to have the desired impact -'

'S-so you're going to p-punch me on the other side?' Dire interrupted him.

Poldue stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds.

'My assessment of your discipline declines,' he said at last. 'But, yes, I will punch you... right... here.'

He poked at the bone under Dire's right eye.

'Here, you chaps,' he said again, standing up and turning to his audience. 'In a fully grown adult this join is fully sealed. It is a weak point that can crack and leave the target vulnerable to blindness if punched in the same place again. Otherwise, it is merely incredibly painful and, if done properly, will temporarily blind the target. On a... child, like Dire. The affect will be similar, but the join is slightly more flexible so, if he's as limp and spongey as he looks, he should recover in a day or two. Now pay attention. I will only do this once.'

Dire closed his eyes and took a deep, ragged breath as Poldue pulled back his fist.

There was a knock on the door.

Poldue looked startled and glanced around at the others, before looking back to the door. The knock didn't repeat. There had been something about the firm surety of its three, steady impacts that suggested that it didn't feel it needed to repeat itself.

Poldue pushed Dire aside and opened the door.

'Ah, Mister Poldue,' said the Drill Abbot who stood on the threshold. 'Perhaps I could have two minutes of your time. Your friends may stay here. You can step outside with me.'

Dire didn't recognize the man who spoke. He wasn't a Chimaera Drill Abbot, nor any of those who taught his classes, nor even one of the infamous others, like Mongrel, whom everyone knew by sight. In fact, were it not for his uniform habit, with its red-trimmed scapular and the emblem of the Schola, he might have mistaken the man for a servant. He was short and bald, with wiry grey hair in an untidy puff above his ears, and loose, lined skin upon his thin face. The only hint of anything distinctive about his person was a short, vertical scar that fell across his eye - an eye that, now Dire thought to look, gleamed with slick grey metal and a dull red light.

'Um, yes, sir,' said Poldue, clearly uncertain of this unexpected shift in the landscape. After Last Chime, the Drill Abbots duties were over. The hallways were patrolled by fifth floor teams and the sixth floor were left to their own devices until First Chime, just before main dawn. To see an unknown Drill Abbot at the heart of a college at this time wasn't unheard-of, but it was abnormal.

No one knew what to make of it. But one didn't refuse orders, so as the Drill Abbot stepped back for him, Poldue stepped out. The Drill Abbot leaned in behind him and pulled the door shut.

Dire looked at the other five as they sipped their cups of tea and exchanged worried looks in silence.

'Who is that?' asked Victor eventually.

'I've seen him before,' said Simeon. 'He's from the Finishing School.'

'Fatidicus's wit!' muttered Barasamov. 'Maybe Poldue's moving up early?'

'And gets told now?' sniped Victor in a whisper. 'In the dead of night? Instead of before the whole cadre? Not a chance.'

But they were given no more time to speculate, as the door's latch clicked and they instantly fell once more to silence. Poldue stepped back in, no sign of the Drill Abbot in the corridor behind him. His face was as pale as Dire's and his eyes twitching and haunted.

'Poldue?' said Barasamov. 'What is it? Who was that?'

'Dire, go to bed,' said Poldue, flatly, not looking at him. 'Victor, pour me another cup.'

Dire stood dumbly, staring back at the various faces staring at him.

'Go, Dire,' said Poldue again. 'Now.'

He needed no further encouragement. Dire opened the door, checked the empty corridor for mysterious Drill Abbots who weren't there, and scampered to the stairs back to his cell.