Amarl took off running, with Burik and Meder at his side. He set his normal pace for distance running, but a quick remembrance of the snap of the crop striking the woman’s hand spurred him forward, and he set a slightly swifter pace, one that he thought he could maintain but that would leave him exhausted at the end of the run. The others stayed with him through the first lap of the Citadel, until they heard a loud snap and a scream echo behind them. At that point, they all sped up, and Burik moved ahead—the larger boy was a better runner than either Amarl or Meder. Meder kept up with Amarl for most of the second lap before falling back; her Running skill was only at level 2, and her Toughness stat was 4.9, significantly below either of the boys’. Amarl’s heart hammered in his chest, and he gasped for breath, but he didn’t slow—the sound of Tautibal’s lash and an occasional shout of pain behind him kept his feet moving when his lungs screamed for mercy.

At last, he completed his third lap and staggered back to the start. His head swam, and stars floated before his eyes. He sucked in shuddering breaths, and his legs wobbled beneath him. He wanted to fall to his knees or even lay down, but he knew that his body would recover faster if he kept moving, and if he lay down, his muscles might stiffen. He walked around, his hands atop his head, trying to control his breathing as best he could as his heart thumped in his chest like it was trying to leap out of his body. A third of the students had already finished ahead of him, and only a few looked in reasonably good shape—Burik among them—while the rest appeared to be no better off than he was.

“Well, that was an interesting start to the day,” Burik said, walking up beside Amarl. The taller boy’s shirt was sweat soaked, but he otherwise looked to be more or less recovered from his run already.

“Not…how I’d…put it,” Amarl gasped, trying to slow his hammering heart. “More…like…shitty.”

Burik chuckled. “The riding crop seems a bit much,” he admitted. “Heck of a motivator, though. I haven’t seen you sucking wind this badly since early last year.”

“Shut up…and let me…breathe,” Amarl huffed. “Army…asshole.”

Burik laughed but let Amarl catch his breath over the next minute. Meder staggered in a couple minutes later, dropping to her hands and knees, coughing and gagging as she fought to keep in her breakfast. Amarl and Burik stayed close but didn’t offer to help; they knew the best thing they could do for her was to pretend they saw nothing. Norag stumbled in behind her, his round face pale and dripping sweat. He managed to stay on his feet, his hands resting on his knees as he sucked in deep, rasping breaths. Thirty seconds later, Tautibal joined them, her face slightly flushed and sweaty but her breathing even as she spoke.

“Good,” she said looking around at the students. “Some of you actually know how to run. Congratulations. As a reward, you can keep running until everyone else finishes. No point in letting those muscles cool down, is there?”

Amarl groaned but set off again on a fourth lap of the huge Citadel, this time at a more normal pace for him. At least, until he heard the nadar shout, “And this time, you’ve only got two minutes before I chase you!” He groaned as he forced himself to speed up once again. He caught up to the slowest of the group halfway around and winced as he neared them. Tautibal hadn’t been joking about the crop; each of the three students he neared had a slash in the back of their uniform, two on their back and one on their thigh, beneath which a sweaty, red welt could be seen.

As he neared them, he gathered enough breath to croak out, “The nadar’s on her way!”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Shit!” He didn’t know which of them spoke, but all three sped up, obviously eager not to feel her lash once more.

He finished his fourth lap just in time to be sent to run one more, and when he finished, his head swam and spun dizzyingly. Stars flashed in his eyes, and everything seemed too bright. He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath that wouldn’t seem to come fast enough. Beside him, Burik stood bent over, his hands on his hips, looking wiped himself. In fact, only three of the students looked to have recovered, and the instructor sent those three out for a final lap, this time setting off to chase them after only a minute. All three arrived back at the start dripping sweat, gasping for breath, and with Tautibal running right on their heels. They all staggered and nearly fell, and the woman nodded with a gratified look.

“A decent start,” she said approvingly. “Here’s how this goes. Each week, I take a little time off the head start—and hit a little harder. Next semester, I’ll be running faster and using a bronze-tipped crop. You’ll be better by then, or you’ll bleed for your weakness.” She flashed them a wicked grin that none of them returned.

“Now that the warm-up’s done, let’s go start the actual training! On your feet; we’re running to Sitjak! Time for weight training!”

Amarl couldn’t help but groan as he staggered erect, hearing similar sounds from most of the other students. Burik and Meder fell in beside him as the three of them jogged toward the distant weapons training center. They ran in silence, all three too winded to speak, and Amarl noticed at least a half-dozen of the students collapse mid-run, exhausted beyond their body’s ability to function. Hadur was one of those; the boy had never been as fit as his classmates, and he’d been the only one of them to pass out the first day of training. Amarl didn’t honestly care if the former son of a merchant kept up or not, but he didn’t really want the boy to get lashes—or more of them, judging from the two rips he already had in his shirt—just for being one of the physically weakest members of the class.

The next hour passed in a sea of misery. Tautibal broke the class up into groups based on how they’d run and spread them out in different exercises. Amarl and Meder were both in the middle group with Norag, Herel and Hadur were in the bottom group, and Burik, of course, was in the top group. The nadar worked every muscle in their bodies. They shouldered heavy bags filled with sand and carried them forward and backward, up and down stairs; they hefted round rocks across sandy pits and stacked them in pyramids, only to move them back to where they started; they jumped in and out of knee-high pools of water carrying metal rods across their shoulders.

The nadar moved through the groups, calling out corrections and reinforcing her words with a crack of her crop to the offending body part. When people seemed to be doing too well, she added more weight or difficulty to the exercise; when they seemed unable to complete another lift or jump, she encouraged them with her voice and a snap of the whip to their backside. Amarl’s muscles trembled and burned by the end of the exercise, and even Burik stumbled frequently on the run back to the dormitory.

“That was just slightly better than pathetic!” Tautibal finally shouted when the last stragglers dragged themselves back to the starting point. “Today, you gave me your best—and as you saw, it wasn’t good enough! You will do better, or you’ll feel pain! Is that understood?”

The “yes, ma’am” that rose from the students was far slower, quieter, and more hesitant than the first one they’d given her that morning, but she merely laughed in response.

“Now, I believe you. Dismissed!” She hesitated. “Oh, and I believe your next class is weapons training back at Sitjak in fifteen minutes. I suggest you all run there if you don’t want to be late.”

As the students rose wearily for their feet and stumbled back the way they’d just come, Meder fell into step beside Amarl.

“I so hate you right now,” she huffed, her steps far more plodding than normal.

“Me?” he said, surprised. “What did I do?”

“A year ago in physical training, you said, ‘One day, we’ll look back at this and think it was easy.’ Damn you for being right. That was a walk in the park. This is the spirits’ hell.”

“I’m too tired to say, ‘I told you so,’” he replied heavily. “Remind me to say it later.”

“And remind me to punch you for saying it, once my arms start working again,” she moaned. “By the way, I changed my mind. I’m no longer excited for this year.”