Dawn of the next day saw three messengers speeding away from the village of Kelsai; one headed north toward the capital of Cestia, the second on a northwest course that would eventually lead him to the kingdom of Solai, and the third bearing more westerly en route to the kingdom of Linareal. The latter two each carried a message from Albanos addressed to names they did not recognize as being associated with the Academy and a set of directions for finding these strangers. However, what disturbed the messengers more than the unfamiliarity were the bits at the end of their instructions that said things like "To keep them from killing you, immediately say the following passphrase."
Beyond that, the final day of peaceful, student-free living passed uneventfully. The faculty moped around the place, staring wistfully into the still-empty classrooms, mourning the loss of their freedom for the next nine months. The Staggering Shadow was completely full (or completely empty, depending on who was asking) of teachers and administrators, staring somberly at their drinks.
Antidote cabinets were double-checked one last time, the traps around the faculty lounge were ceremoniously set for the year, and, as the sun began to rise on the day of the students' arrival, those members of the staff who were given to such things offered up silent prayers, asking to get through one more school year alive. University staff members everywhere, even in more academically minded institutions, often say such prayers, but only in the Assassin and Thief Academies did they lose their symbolic quality.
The students, Albanos had been told, usually began arriving a little while after noon. The sun was almost done with its climb now, and he found himself staring into his wardrobe, uncharacteristically nervous once again, as he had been when facing the faculty for the first time. Between the way the rest of the staff talked about the students and some of the memories of his salad days, he felt he had every right to be. They weren't an enemy bent on killing you. No, they were an enemy bent on annoying you, breaking you, demoralizing you. That made them infinitely worse. You couldn't respond to annoyance with deadly force, at least not without getting a lot of angry letters from parents.
The village tailors had been buzzing around him all week, pompous and gaudy flies he was sure he'd get in trouble for swatting, or choking with their tape measures (an impulse he'd had to fight down more than once). The result was a closet full of clothing fancier than he'd seen on anything but a corpse in quite some time.
The senior staff had repeatedly told him that it was tradition for the principal to wear full ceremonial attire on the first day, from when the students began arriving to when orientation ended that night. He could see the merit in wearing them for the orientation if he squinted hard enough. But he'd be damned if he was going to sit out in the hot sun for four hours, playing meet and greet with armed teenagers in the bulkiest outfit they'd handed him. He pulled on the light, comfortable, and inconspicuous travel clothes he'd arrived in and slipped down into the courtyard.
It was still deserted, save for Billicks, Downs, and Hilnith, huddled together and talking in what shade the male dorm could provide this close to midday. They were all such raging traditionalists that they felt their punctuality served as an example to the students, even though said students weren't here yet, would have no idea how long the teachers had been standing there when they did begin arriving, and could not care less one way or the other. As with so many aspects of their world, it was very much the principle of the thing.
Albanos felt certain that every other sentence in that conversation probably started with the words "Back in my day..." and that he would not be allowed to contribute even though he was older than any of them. It was mainly because he remembered what things had been like back then (pretty much the same as they were now), and the nostalgic tended to frown upon people who had not yet developed the fuzzy, cataract delusions about the good old days. They glanced at Albanos as he fished a cigarette out of one pocket, lit it, collectively scowled at him, and returned to their own discussion.
"What's the matter?" he muttered. "Assassins didn't smoke back in your day?"
Sighing, he sat down on the steps leading up to the front door of the main building and began waiting; the only noise was the flapping of the poorly made "Welcome Back Students" banner above him...which, he noted while peering up at it, was hung slightly crooked. Other faculty began filtering into the courtyard as the hour wore on, some from their quarters in the main building, others coming in the main gate from their homes out in the village. Most of them stopped to look at his clothes and sigh, but no one, he saw with some satisfaction, decided to call him on it. Reputation had some perks, at least.
"Well, you certainly look comfortable," said a female voice behind him. Ms. Elwhite plopped down on the step right next to him and smiled, giving the impression that they were old friends and not, in fact, sworn enemies up until a week ago.
"It's blazing out here. If I didn't know any better, I'd think those robes were the senior faculty's final attempt at offing me via heat stroke."
"You think this lot's capable of something that subtle?"
Albanos thought back to Rodderick's flying leap at him and Billicks's stubborn refusal to understand...well, anything. They were all good assassins and thieves, but sneaking and stabbing was textbook to their kind. There was a vast difference between being undetected and being subtle. Clinging to the shadows, dagger in your teeth, fitting all the romantic stereotypes of a rogue could leave you undetected, sure. Disabling a butler, taking his clothes, walking into the kitchen, and poisoning your target's food without ever endangering yourself or anyone else was, while less romantic, far more subtle.
If you were caught trying to be undetected, people just tended to assume you were up to no good and stab you, no questions asked. Get caught being not quite subtle enough, and people tended to assume you were new to the position, incompetent, simple, or some mixed bag of all three. Provided you had hid the body well enough.
"Point taken. How does this work these days? What are we doing out here? I don't remember a faculty greeting upon our arrival when I was a student. More of...more of a panicked sprint across the courtyard."
"It was one of Hagglit's ideas, which the more histrionic faculty members have taken too much of a liking to in the intervening years for us to cancel on short notice. One trauma at a time, for the immediate future. They say it builds on our sense of community and togetherness, boosts morale, that kind of thing."
Ms. Elwhite's rolling eyes at these sentiments told Albanos exactly where she stood on the effectiveness of community-building exercises.
"Anyway, in theory, all the teachers form up near the main building here, and as the students come in through the main gates, they come up, say hello to us, thank us for another year of training, and then head to their respective dorms to find their room assignments and get settled in before orientation starts."
"And in practice?"
"All the teachers form up near the main building here, most of them trying to hide behind one another so as not to attract the attention of students they don't feel like dealing with yet. The students enter through the main gate; they ignore us and begin talking, hugging, greeting, and shanking one another to ring in the new year.
"Eventually, they are forcibly herded to their respective dorms, with a few of the male students having to be yanked out of the girls' line and told that if they don't get settled in and run down to orientation, we will send them home one piece at a time. Then tonight, they tear down the banner, deface it, and put it back up in what I'm sure they feel is a highly amusing place."
"Such as?"
"Well,,they tied Mr. Billicks to his bed with it last year."
"Oh...well, this sounds like a lovely evening we have in store for us. Do most of the students still arrive in the Convoy?"
"Oh yes." And as if on cue, a green flare went up somewhere in the distance beyond the walls of the Academy. "And that would be our final warning call now."
The Convoy was nothing but a train of carts that slowly assembled itself during the journey to Kelsai. The students who lived farthest out would leave for the school first, but because of the dangers of the road and the concept of safety in numbers, they did not head straight for the Academy. Instead, they pulled into the next village with students going in that year, who then jumped on the cart.
This process repeated itself from village to village, going out of its way if necessary, with a new cart added whenever the last became full. Due to the Convoy's rushed nature and the sheer number of carts eventually involved, friends often had to wait until they arrived at the Academy before they could be certain everyone had made it on board.
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By the time it reached the school, almost the entire student body would be piled on, making it the least assailable, most conspicuously inconspicuous wagon train in the kingdom. Highwaymen who jumped out from behind rocks at the sound of wheels approaching would quickly recognize the cargo and commence whistling innocently or pretending to fill in potholes.
Many villages along the route now held celebrations on the day the Convoy came through, sweeping a select few "students" off to parts unknown. Publicly, this was to see their young charges off in style. Behind closed doors, however, it was a party celebrating the little demon spawn leaving for another year.
The creaking of wheels could be heard now, and soon, the lead wagon became visible through the open gate. Within minutes, a steady stream of students was pouring in. Albanos watched them impassively from the stoop, working on his cigarette and garnering no attention whatsoever as Elwhite had promised. For the moment, he was just another faceless faculty member to be remorselessly dealt with later.
He almost enjoyed watching these first moments from the adult side of things: the joyful reunions and the scowling renewal of old rivalries for another year, all weaving together into the kind of low-grade, high-angst drama you only got from bad daytime playhouses or putting large numbers of teenagers in one place. He was waxing nostalgic for his days in the school before thoughts of becoming like Billicks, Hilnith, and Downs quickly brought him back to reality. It was then that his brain, honed to pick up on breaks in the pattern or clots in the flow of the world, saw the gang. And the girl they were harassing.
She was a mousy creature with the markings of a first-year thief on her uniform. The thugs surrounding her, eleven by Albanos' count, wore thief colors, ranging from second to fourth years. There were groups like this in every generation. He remembered Charlie Ornhaus and his Heathens, dumber than rocks and twice as tough, how hard they'd made so many people's lives. He hated their sort.
Once, before the entirety of civilization had turned against him, a young Albanos had vehemently proselytized that thieves and assassins needed to look out for one another because no one was going to. A Wolf bothering another Wolf was even less acceptable in his mind since it went against their very code. Some would say you had to write this behavior off to youthful arrogance and stupidity, but Albanos had never felt that should excuse someone from receiving a good beating. How else were they going to learn?
Elwhite caught his glare and turned to follow.
"Ahh...the Pack, they call themselves. Idiots. Barely passing, every one of them. Well-connected parents, good with the Academy Council, former students who I'm sure were just like them. Can't do much except hope they don't find much work once they graduate. Chauvinists, too, as if I needed more reason not to like them. Don't believe females have any right killing anything beyond what they plan on cooking them for dinner that night, hence what we're watching right now."
The Pack had fanned out a bit, putting themselves between the girl and the female dorm, and were starting to advance. She was near tears now, dignity holding down the fort of her first few moments at the school. One particularly stupid-looking third-year brute, all sloped forehead and unibrow, knocked the books out of her hand. The rest of the students in the yard became quiet and began looking elsewhere or edging away, not wanting trouble with the gang on their first day back. A first year had no allies, and the faculty knew who the Pack's fathers were. But Albanos had seen enough. He stood and began reaching for his belt.
The sound of tearing fabric broke the silence, and the boy who had slapped away the girl's books began to feel a bit drafty down below. A quick inspection of his pants revealed that the entire seam between the legs had been split back to front. Quickly covering up as best he could, he turned to see if anyone had noticed. No one was looking at him. Instead, they were staring at somewhere just past and below him. Turning to follow their gazes, he saw the throwing dagger lodged nearly two inches into the dirt, still wobbling back and forth slightly. Even at his speed, the connection between these two facts did not take long.
As one, the Pack turned to see where the dagger had come from. There was a widening circle of empty space in the yard as everyone followed the age-old student instinct of getting far enough away from a conflict to not get hurt but never so far as to not see what was going on. Albanos moved up a few steps to see over the spontaneous wall of people that this expansion built, obstructing his view.
At the center of the circle was a tall girl. She wasn't in one of the school's official uniforms, a mixture of grays and dark greens more suited to camouflage. She was all dressed in black, with no markings to denote her profession or year. Her hair, jet black, was put up in various places by black pins. By contrast, her skin was as pale as a full harvest moon's light, and her cold, hard eyes the piercing green of emerald insets, which he could see even from here. She was idly tossing another throwing dagger in one black-nailed hand, her glare never leaving the boy whose pants she had just performed a bit of long-distance tailoring on.
Albanos turned to look at the Pack. Retribution would have to be swift, or the balance of power would--
The three fourth-years were bolting, trying to claw their way through the circled students with all the ferocity of trapped animals. The boy she was staring at erupted into racking sobs, then curled up in a ball on the ground, covering his face and throat at the expense of modesty in the trouser region. The new kid they had been bothering had long since gathered her books and melted into the crowd. She had good instincts and would likely do well here, Albanos thought.
A particularly dense second year in the Pack stepped forward.
"This is none of your business, girl. If you know what's good for you, get out of here now."
Instead, she began to walk towards him, her steps slow and deliberate, her gait graceful, her head completely stabilized, her gaze unwavering.
Albanos started to move down the steps again, but Ms. Elwhite touched his shoulder.
"You don't want to be in there, sir."
"You think I have something to fear from a bunch of incompetent street thugs?"
"Not."
Albanos looked confused for a second. "What then, the girl?"
"You need to watch this. You'll understand if they stay true to form in a few minutes."
When he turned back, the girl was about five feet from the eight remaining Pack members, all eyeing her warily. She drew a line in the loose earth of the courtyard with the toe of her boot, turned her back on them, and closed her eyes. Her face took on a look of deep concentration.
"Is she grandstanding?!" Albanos urgently whispered to Elwhite, feeling like a scholar observing a scene of horrible predation but being asked not to interfere with nature taking its course. "There's eight of them. She's going to get destroyed!"
"You grandstand all the time," she whispered back.
"But I've had decades of practice!"
Ms. Elwhite just shushed him and pointed back to the show. The Pack were looking at one another, having a silent battle between testosterone and survival instinct. Before they could all sort out which one was winning, the same second-year who had called her "girl" decided he wouldn't stand for this sort of treatment and stepped forward. The other seven reached for him simultaneously, colliding and obstructing one another in a comedic scramble.
His boot crossed the line.
Where once had been a tall, pale girl, there was now only a blur, a swath of black silk shot through with gleaming metal, dancing through the courtyard.
If Albanos concentrated, he could make out the individual blows landing on each Pack member before they could even think of defending themselves. He saw someone pull a knife. There was a rush of movement, the sound of a bone breaking, and then a knife laying harmlessly on the ground, quickly being kicked out of everyone's reach. He thought he caught a flash of yellowish metal reflecting in the sun, but seconds later, there was a sound like someone cracking their fingers with profound conviction, and a set of brass knuckles came flying out of the melee.
Then it was over.
Eight figures lay on the ground, either moaning or screaming, depending on how much of a fight they had tried to put up. Limbs weren't pointing in the directions they should. Noses were bent in ways that made their operational value highly suspect. And the girl was on the other side of the carnage from where she had begun. She stood there, unscathed.
And opened her eyes.
Albanos' cigarette fell uncontested from his mouth and rolled, forgotten, down the remaining steps.
"Ms. Elwhite," he croaked, "is she a student here?"
"Yes, sir. Her name is Lillith. And you, of all people, would do well to remember what you just saw."