Teren was impatient.

He showed a calm face to the world, but deep inside he couldn’t wait to get on with it.

More than thirty other boys were waiting on the training court for the trials to start. Thirty-four boys and one girl, to be exact. He was looking at the lone girl amidst the company. She was standing in her own bubble of space, looking completely unfazed, all of the others giving her a wide berth. He knew Grinna fleetingly. She was a few years younger than him, and his father was a soldier under her father’s command. They had met often as children but he hadn’t seen her during the last year.

But he had heard of her. No one in the city hadn’t heard of her by now, he thought. The girl who had taken her path from the Warrior. She must have had to fight tooth and nail, to be allowed to enter the tryouts. Teren thought her father might have used his influence, too. Even so, he was rather surprised to see her here. The traditionalists surely weren’t happy about that. Resistance to a girl warrior had been fierce.

A disturbance went through the crowd in front of him. The instructors were walking out on the court. Finally!

The candidates lined up for roll call, everyone answering to his name diligently. Every candidate had to complete a run over 10 kilometers as well as an obstacle course inside of a set time limit. They had to prove their proficiency with the bow, the sword and the knife, be able to read and write, and to pass an exam in wilderness lore and survival techniques. The ranger trials were famous for their level of difficulty. Generally, only one in three candidates passed the trials and went on to the probation period which lasted for another six months. During that time they were given missions by the instructors which they had to carry out successfully. Only if the candidates passed the probation period they started training to be a ranger for real. That training lasted for another three years in a personal apprenticeship with an experienced ranger.

The probation period was supposed to weed out the candidates who could not manage to stay in the wilds for long. Not everyone had the temperament to face the wilderness without a roof over their heads and the habitual comforts of cooked meals and dry beds. Not to mention possible encounters with beasts.

Teren needed to pace himself on the run. He had trained exhaustively during the last months, ever since he had decided to enter the trials, but he was huge and running wasn’t one of his strong points. At least he had managed to stay in the middle of the field. He was sweating fiercely, his breath labouring. Far in front of him, a group of three was in the lead. Two boys and Grinna. Suddenly, both boys tried to jostle her from the sides, trying to trip her up. It was obviously a coordinated attack. They had no luck. She twisted her body to the side gently, and made a short hop, so that the boys just missed their mark and lost their own footing instead. She kept running along without a second of hesitation. Teren had to grin despite his exhaustion. Nice work, that.

After the run they had a short break to cool down, and then they were sent on the obstacle course. Here Teren did well. He was blessed with good balance and a lot of strength. And he had a lot of experience with obstacle courses.

They were part of a soldier’s training too. He had been a soldier for three years. The first six months as a recruit and then as a hopper. The official designation for the lowest ranked soldiers was green rank. But long ago everyone had started to call them hoppers. It was an open question where the nick name originated from. Might originally have been frog or grasshopper. Of course the brass frowned upon the unofficial name, but hopper it was.

He had wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father. But it wasn’t for him. He had found life as a soldier mind-numbingly boring, mostly doing duty as a guard at the garrison. It had taken some time for him to admit it, even to himself. But he couldn’t face twenty or thirty years of doing exactly what he was told to, no thinking required. At first he had been stumped, not knowing what to do. He had always been sure he wanted to be a soldier like his father. And he had the size and the strength for it, but not the temperament. It had been hard to come to grips with it. But then he had talked to his father, who hadn’t even been surprised. He had suggested to Teren to apply for the ranger trials. The job of a ranger was challenging and diversified, and in the field he could make decisions for himself, would even be forced to.

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After the obstacle course came the shooting trials. Teren was excelling there. He had always had a knack for the bow. Knife and sword fights against the instructors finished the first part of the trials. He was good with the sword, a little weaker with the knife. But he managed to acquit himself well. The instructor he was paired with needed to work, until he managed to land three hits on him. With the sword Teren even managed to land a hit of his own on the instructor. Not too shabby. Madden was a real talent with the sword and one of the youngest instructors in the garrison at Atelang. Teren was satisfied. It should be enough to pass.

He was sitting down in the shade, tired now, and watched the fights of the remaining candidates. A few talents stood out, some others had rather a difficult time of it. At last, there was only one candidate left. Grinna. She entered the circle calmly, standing poised and waiting for the instructor to mark the beginning of the bout.

Then it started, Madden calling out “Mark!”, and flashing into action.

Teren involuntarily sat up straighter. Madden was moving a lot faster now than during his own bout with him. But Grinna had already evaded his attack with minimal displacement of her body. She was moving economically, no unnecessary steps, her parries just fast enough. It was very clear the instructor did his utmost to finish the bout fast and decisively. At first, she was only defending, seemingly moving slow but always fast enough to evade or parry Madden's attacks. Then she seemed to find her rhythm and she started to take the initiative. An evasion to the right, that she turned into a high attack, without losing a hair of speed. She was dancing, Teren realized, with such grace one could almost forget this was a fight.

It took quite some time for the bout to finish. Grinna had managed to land a hit on the instructor twice, before he marked his third hit on her. Teren had to admire her form. But no wonder perhaps, he remembered her father was one of the best sword fighters in all of Atelang. He must have been training her. As Grinna turned and left the circle, her eyes met his and she winked at him. Teren felt self-conscious, he had been staring at her like a loon.

They filed out of the courtyard and into the mess. Teren was ravenous after the morning’s exertions. Here, too, Grinna had a little bubble of her own. She ate alone at her table, apparently unconcerned.

After the meal followed the exam. The questions were diverse but Teren thought he did well. He was no genius, but he was smart and he had applied himself to studying with a vengeance, once he decided to enter the trials. Finally, it was over and they all met in the courtyard again to wait for the results. They were waiting for a good long while, until one of the instructors appeared.

“We have tallied your results now. I will call out the names of the candidates who passed the trials. All the rest of you, thank you for participating.”

He read out a list of eleven names. Teren blew out his breath, relieved. He had passed.

The candidates who hadn’t made it were leaving, disappointed. Some had clearly expected it, others were muttering angrily, convinced they had been treated unfairly. Grinna had passed the trials, too. Teren had to admire her. Some of the other candidates clearly had tried to hamper her, and he suspected even Madden had tried to trip her up in the bout. But she had sailed through complacently, her self-confidence seemingly unshakeable.

“Those of you who passed the trials, congratulations. You will choose a partner now, with whom you will form a team. Tomorrow you will start your probation period of six months. During that time, we will send you on short missions outside of Atelang. At first with an experienced ranger as a partner, later on your own. You will have to succed in your missions as a team. Please choose your partner now.”

Teren had to look at Grinna. Her face was set now, and she radiated tension. Eleven candidates had passed, and they were ordered to form teams of two. ‘So that is their game,’ he thought. They expected no one would want to partner with the girl. Obviously, they wanted to isolate her and make it impossible for her to succeed on her own. She had done very well in the trials, they couldn’t fail her without being obviously unfair. But if no one wanted to partner with the girl, that was just the way it turned out.

He squinted and flattened his lips. This just might go down differently than they had expected. Calmly he went over to Grinna who watched him warily as he approached.

“Want to be my partner?” he asked.