“We only truly bond with those who promise to break us at just the right moment.”

— Soninke saying.

----------------------------------------

It was the incessant thumping of feet and scratching of fabric, and not the call of the person on watch, that roused me from my slumber.

It must be morning.

Dawn had arrived far too soon.

I rolled off my cot on the floor, rubbed the grime out of my eyes, and grabbed the threadbare woollen tunic and trousers I’d been using for a pillow. I’d been given them when I’d arrived. There wasn’t much to go around for any of us, but the rebellion was doing its best with what it had and was always trying to reach for more.

The aches in my everywhere had reduced to a dull throb, but sometimes I was still shaky. Changing, I rose to my feet and shuffled my way between the other bodies shambling off the floor. I felt like a vegetable packed into a box alongside all the others. There were so many bodies within the room that it was stifling. Other orphans like me who’d ran away and found common cause among the rebellion. We were an odd bunch with no real separation by age. The youngest brat was eight and often sniffled at night, making it hard to sleep.

I was still miffed that my suggestion to put a shirt over his head while he slept hadn’t met much approval.

I shoved and jostled my way through the crowd as I headed towards the exit. Some of them gave me sullen glares, others swore under their breath. I didn’t pay any of them much attention. They were all satisfied with the many unimportant tasks we were assigned. Busywork, but nothing significant.

Performing menial chores like repairing clothing, peeling potatoes and messenger work felt like doing nothing to me. Actually, the messenger work felt meaningful but I wanted to do more.

I hungered to do something that mattered.

It wasn’t long before I reached the ladder at the far end of the room and started to climb. The hatch at the top was open.

“Morning, little miss.”

“If you call me cute again…” I glared at him.

“Like an angry territorial chicken with not enough meat on her bones.”

That was entirely unearned. I’d only accosted someone for invading my space once. I punched him lightly on the arm. It didn’t do much, but it made me feel like I was doing something. His lips twitched, then he let out a guffaw.

“Anything happened last night, Harris?”

“Nothing to bother your head about.”

“I’m sure my head will appreciate that when I’m dead in a ditch.”

Harris gave a shrug which was muted by his leather coat, but said no more. He never caved in to my demands to know more.

I gave him one last sullen glare, then walked past, down a narrow corridor illuminated by candles ensconced on the walls behind the bent over form of the man in front of me. The compound was oppressive. A series of tunnels that had been dug beneath several of the houses in Laure after the last rebellion. I’d been told that there were more compounds like it spread out across the city, but I’d never gotten to see any of them. A part of me believed it was a lie that we were being fed in order to give us more hope, despite evidence to the contrary.

My pace picked up as I entered the kitchen. The smells and sounds of bubbling, piping hot porridge called to me from the other end of the room. I grabbed a bowl and shovelled in as much as I could, then ambled towards the corridor again. I wasn’t sure if the low, simmering heat from the cauldron was more or less unpleasant than the disapproving from of the chef. It sat atop an enchanted heating stone that pulsed between red and orange every few heartbeats.

“You better eat all of that.” the portly chef groused as I walked away. “No taking more than you need to hide away for later like you did the last few times.”

“It was a meal for the road,” I protested.

“All you kids try that the first few times.”

“Hunger teaches all of us the best lessons,” I retorted.

“You say that, then you get horribly sick. Don’t make more problems for us than we already have.”

“What problems are those?” I laced my words with what little sweetness I could.

The chef’s bulbous lips clammed shut. His beady amber eyes glared at me, then he turned away again.

I considered pressing further, but decided against it. I didn’t want to annoy the person responsible for my meals. At least… not too much. Besides, there were other ways for me to learn what I wanted to know.

“The cravings should disappear by the end of the month at most. Gods, I’ve seen enough of you little tragedies to learn more than I cared to know about that. Now, get out of my kitchen!”

I scuttled out and continued down the corridor with the bowl secured tight against my chest. I was careful not to allow any of it to spill. It didn’t take long for me to reach my favourite spot to eat. Two doors down, along the corridor on the left and into a small, almost forgotten chamber. It was a cramped room that was often abandoned. A small, empty bookshelf leaned against the packed dirt of the right-hand wall. A table and three-legged stool occupied the middle of the room. I placed my bowl on the table beside an abandoned candlestick holder for a moment and grabbed the stool. After dragging it beside one of the supporting beams, I reclaimed my porridge with my bony fingers and sat with my ear pressed against the beam.

Nothing. Nothing yet, at least.

Can’t win every time, Cat.

I pushed aside my disappointment and started to shovel the porridge into my mouth. It was no longer scalding and had started to become gloopy, but satisfied me regardless.

My spoon froze halfway between the bowl and my mouth as a tremor passed through the roof above me.

Yes!

Maybe I could win every time. A light sprinkle of dust fell into my porridge, but I ignored it in my excitement. I pressed my ear so hard against the beam that I’d swear it left an indent. I’d discovered this spot by chance. The roof was thin and by pressing my ear against one of the beams I could hear the talk above.

By sheer happenstance, the room above happened to be the room that the two heroes leading the rebellion often used for their meetings. Aethelred and Mabli. I’d almost fallen over in surprise the first time I’d heard them speaking. Then I’d worried that I’d be caught for listening in, only for nothing to come of it. They were not the only heroes in the rebellion, only the two most important ones.

I’d been told there were ten in total, but I didn’t know where the others were.

Hopefully, I could learn more by eavesdropping.

I’d never encountered Aethelred or Mabli face to face, either — let alone any of the other eight — but I was still eager to catch every word that I could.

These scout reports must be wrong.

Why?

The local administrators have been pulled out of Laure.

We’ve been causing trouble for over a season now, Mabli. The Empire has to be bleeding.

I snorted at that. The idea of the rebellion having done enough to destabilize the Legion so far was stupid even to me. We would have won decades ago if it was this easy.

It makes no sense. We’ve lost every clash with the Legions.

It’s time we’re due a windfall then.

The two heroes always bickered whenever I eavesdropped on their discussions. I wasn’t sure that I liked either of them. Listening to Mabli was like listening to the growl of my empty stomach, but after living on the streets, I felt that she had a better idea of the situation. Aethelred, however, was actually born in Callow. He truly fought for us.

Mabli was from Daoine and I didn’t like many of her ideas. It wasn’t that there was anything I could point out that was wrong about them, but… it often felt like she was missing something.

That isn’t how it works, Aeth. The Black Knight doesn’t just owe us a victory because we’ve been losing for so long.

Ever the eternal pessimist. What do you think is happening?

Silence fell. I finished off my porridge while I waited for a response. A splinter pricked at my ear. I stifled the urge to swear.

I don’t know, but it’s part of a longer game. Every warehouse we’ve hit has been empty. Every. Single. One.

“Listening to those two squabble cut’s deep, doesn’t it?”

I tightened my grip on the beam and almost jumped off the stool.

“Would it kill you to knock?” I hissed at Sullivan.

The sixteen-year-old was leaning with his arms folded at the doorway against the packed dirt wall. Sullivan always kept to himself. It was hard to learn more about him as a person. I’d learned more about him since arriving by talking to others. He was one of the squires who had been hiding away at Marchford. He had escaped before the last rebellion had been squashed, only to end up here.

“Sometimes.”

He sounded amused.

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d need to listen in.”

“I’m not important enough to weigh in.”

Both of us spoke in furtive whispers. Sullivan walked over and rested an ear against the beam, while resting a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off irritably.

“I don’t think they’d appreciate you listening in then.”

I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. A sense that somebody was staring at me.

Right, I’m doing the same.

“You’re not the only one who doesn’t like being kept in the dark and fed shit.”

I sent a brief grin of shared understanding his way. It was frustrating not knowing anything. Both of us lapsed into silence as the heroes began to speak once again.

The roof above my head shook as Mabli stomped her boots.

Not every warehouse. Think about the textiles we raided two weeks ago.

All the important ones.

This was never going to be easy, Mabli.

You don’t get it. That many warehouses, that many foundries, that many legion stockpiles can’t all be empty. They simply can’t be. There’s nowhere else to store the goods. We hit places then either win very little, or not at all, or it's a complete slaughter. There’s still no word on where the Black Knight is, so we can’t challenge him to a fight, and now the city administrators are being pulled out as well. Something about this is rotten.

Stolen novel; please report.

It’s not like we’re short on arms. Every other family has weapons hidden under their bed, just waiting for us to give the call.

That’s not what it’s about, and you know it, Aeth. Beating the Legions is going to take more than just hopes and dreams. We need to harry them, take away their weapons and give people a cause to rally to.

I keep telling you, you’re so focused on the Legions that you’re not seeing the bigger picture. If we don’t give the call, then sooner or later we lose anyway. We’ll be nothing but Praesi citizens with a lighter shade of skin in a decade. We’ll have forgotten our knights, our nobles, our stories, our traditions. Everything that makes us Callow and not Praes.

We need a proper win first for your plans to amount to more than an empty whiff.

And so you’d have us scramble about in the dirt some more. You’re letting them play us for fools.

Better than your idiotic idea of trying to call up an army with no way to feed them, or trying to challenge the Black Knight to a duel. We can barely feed what we already have!

It’s worked in the past. One good cavalry charge from behind should be enough to do them all in. The Praesi always fall for that.

Sullivan snorted.

What gives you the idea that the Black Knight would agree to a duel.

“What do you think of our illustrious leaders?” Sullivan drawled.

“They’ve always been like this?”

“Ever since I’ve joined up.”

“Somebody needs to beat the shit out of them.”

“Whatever hammer you used would break first.”

I snorted.

“We’ll keep digging this hole deeper if somebody clever doesn’t storm into that room sooner or later and pull their heads out of their asses.”

“Sounds about as likely to happen as me rising from the grave.”

“We’ve got one idiot who thinks the Black Knight is going to accept a duel, and another who wants to try to unite Callow by scheming like a Proceran.”

“It’s sheer idiocy,” Sullivan agreed. “What do you think they should do?”

I was about to respond when the heroes started to speak again. Both of us shut our mouths.

What we really need to do is kill one of the Calamities.

It would give people something to rally around, Aeth, but none of them have been seen in a while.

Tell me what you think, then?

I think this is part of some kind of trap. It doesn’t make sense otherwise. Only, I can’t see how Praes benefits by pulling out the administrators when they’ve got us dead to rights.

I think that the chaos in Praes has become so bad that he can’t afford to keep Laure occupied. He’ll pull the Legion out next, just you wait and see.

Perhaps you’re right. I heard that there is a goblin uprising in Foramen.

We’ll need to wait for word from the latest merchants before we can be more certain.

“They have fourteen Legions of Terror. That’s more than enough to keep the goblins busy with some still to spare,” I grumbled.

“Don’t think a goblin uprising is enough to pull them away?”

“Definitely not.”

I think it’s going to be ugly, Aeth. Mark my words. We should do everything we can. Prepare the kids. Teach them how to fight as well.

I tensed. This was my chance. I didn’t want to be stuck doing chores. I could really contribute if this change to the rules was approved.

Sullivan grunted beside me.

“What?” I challenged. “Don’t approve of me fighting, either?”

“Learning to fight’s smart,” he denied. “It’s not a good time to be out and about without knowing how to.”

I was halfway to raising my next point of argumentation against him when I realized what it was that he said.

“Then why did you push back against me joining?”

“Needed to be sure that you really wanted it.”

“I’m not dead weight.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

Both of us lapsed into silence.

This again? We’re not going to make soldiers out of our own children, Mabli.

They’re part of this. None of this stupid camp follower business that you insist on.

It’s not right. Just because they’re a drain on our resources doesn’t-

This isn’t about the cost of taking care of them. We’re doing that regardless, spread across every compound. It’s about the fact that they’ll die if they’re found out.

Would She be happy with us if we made them soldiers?

I scowled.

She is not here. She is in Procer. She has abandoned us. We’re here.

If we have to go that far in order to win, then we’ve already lost.

The Black Knight isn’t going to stop from executing them just because they don’t know their way around a blade.

The two of them continued to argue, but I couldn’t hear it over the frustration that simmered deep in my gut. It was so…so… ugh, I didn’t know the word. Just, to have them talk about me as if I couldn’t decide this for myself. I doubted the Black Knight would spare me if he found where I was hiding. He would kill me anyway. I didn’t want to be coddled and treated like a kid by the rebellion when the Dread Empire wouldn’t do the same.

I stabbed at the empty bowl with my spoon in annoyance.

There was no telling how long it would take until Aethelred changed his mind. There was no telling if he would change his mind. I couldn’t afford to wait on him to come to his senses. I needed to find a teacher of my own, before the rebel hideouts were found, and I was killed because I was defenceless.

But who?

It was only after the noise above ceased — and the heroes left — that the obvious occurred to me.

Sullivan had been a squire. That meant he would’ve been given proper training. He’d know his way around a weapon better than most of the rebellion. I just needed to convince him that I was worth his time.

“Teach me,” I demanded.

“I don’t think you need my help delivering messages,” he stated drily.

“You can teach me to deliver a different kind of message,” I challenged.

“The rebellion not living up to your hopes?”

“Not when the leaders expect me to roll over and die rather than pick up a weapon.”

“No faith in our leaders?”

“I want to do something, not leave winning up to everyone else. You could teach me.”

“Do I look like a knight to you?”

“You’re built like one.”

Sullivan grunted again. He pulled back from the beam and started walking towards the door.

“I’ll give as good as I get, and I’m twice as nasty as anyone else you’ll meet. I’ll bring you meals, polish your shoes and listen to whatever shit you spout if that’s what it takes to convince you to train me,” I scowled, “I’ll even take care of your horse and call you sir if you want.”

It was an easy offer to make. As far as I knew, Sullivan didn’t have a horse.

Sullivan halted.

“Down the corridor on the left, four rooms along from where you sleep, two hours before curfew.”

“You were just waiting for me to offer things, you asshole.”

“Don’t be late, Catherine.”

I left the room and returned the bowl to the kitchen, then started my duties for the day. Messenger work. I brightened. It was the least frustrating out of the assigned chores.

Messenger duties were both repetitive and varied. There was also a small amount of excitement to them. It felt like I was doing something. The procedure was always the same, but the destination differed almost every time. I was given a sequence of numbers to memorize, which I’d been told were some kind of code. Then I was given a list of destinations, before being blindfolded, taken outdoors and led to a dropoff point. There were agreed upon places for us to meet once we were done before being guided back into the shelter.

None of us saw the other compounds. All communication was spoken, and done between middlemen. I wasn’t sure who had set it all up, but whichever hero was responsible for this mess had made a lot of work for everyone else.

The day ended, and I felt dead on my feet, but my mind was sharper than Goblin Steel. It wasn’t long before I’d polished off my dinner and was heading towards the meeting place. Despite the room being larger than most of the others, it was bare. There I met Sullivan. I shut the door behind me. He had a pair of blunted swords leaning on the wall to his left and two shields on his right.

“Seems a little pointless to have so much empty space.”

“People used to sleep here.”

I quietened at that.

"If that's the case, then why can't the rest of us have more room to sleep."

"They're too busy fighting over other things."

That sounded about right from what I'd seen, as upsetting as it was.

“So,” I said jovially in an attempt to revive the mood, “teach me swordsmanship.”

“Call me sir,” he said with amusement.

“What?”

“You offered to.”

“Fine. Sir,” I stated insincerely.

“Good. Now, I’m not going to teach you swordsmanship.”

“That seems a little counter-productive.”

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“Sir.”

He chuckled.

“Tell me what you want to do, Catherine. Do you want to learn a noble’s sport, or do you want to learn something else?”

I licked my lips while I considered the question.

“I want to learn how to fight.”

No, that wasn’t it. I needed to go further than that if I wanted Callow to be free. I needed a release, some way to share my anger with the people who’d bled my nation dry.

“I want to learn how to kill.”

“Sir,” I added as an afterthought.

“Good. The two most important parts of any kind of fighting are distance and footwork. You’re going to have to learn both if you want to kill people.” He picked up a pair of blunted weapons and passed them to me. “Shield’s up!” he barked.

The weight of both was surprisingly heavy, but I did my best to raise the shield. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t for my time on the streets.

“You’re right-handed,” he said, “so your left hip and leg should be braced against the back of the shield. Otherwise, you’re open.”

I adjusted the shield. His sword whipped out fast. Faster than my eye could follow. The tip of the blunted weapon came to rest on my throat.

“Dead,” he said simply.

I swallowed.

I tried again. Squared my shoulders and raised my shield. My entire body trembled as the upper edge came all the way up to my chin.

Once more, the blade whipped out. Once more, it touched against my throat.

He frowned, “you’re going to need to put some muscle on those bones. Again.”

I adjusted once more.

“That’s better. Now, for the sword. Grasp the grip and press forward as you lift it out.”

“This is unwieldy. I can’t slash this way, sir.”

“You’re not supposed to. Infantry fight in lines, not one on one in duels.”

“Then what if I do, sir?” I blurted out.

“What if you do what?”

“End up fighting someone one on one, sir.”

This sirring is already annoying. Can I make some kind of joke out of it?

“Then you’ve probably done something stupid.”

“With respect, sir, I’m more likely to end up cornered in a duel than allowed into the rebel infantry. I don’t even think we have an infantry.”

“Point,” Sullivan grunted, “there are a few things you need to know. The first is simple. There’s nothing fancy about making corpses.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I dropped the sir. There was a pause, before Sullivan continued to speak.

“Don’t overplay your hand. Don’t go for dramatic thrusts or one hit kills that leave an opening. Keep within your guard. Land twenty small cuts and allow your enemy to bleed out. Remember, it doesn’t matter how they die, only that they’re dead.”

I looked down at my sweating body, then looked up at Sullivan and raised an eyebrow.

“Think I’ll collapse before I wore anyone down,” I told him drily.

“You’ll need to recover first,” he allowed.

Sullivan continued to tutor me until half an hour before curfew. I left exhausted, but with a smile on my face. Learning to fight was exhilarating. It wasn’t the same as being allowed to help the rebellion, but at least I felt better about what might happen should a fight come to me.

I still had a long way to go. It would take much more practice before I felt confident that I could hold my own.

Now I only needed to find a way to contribute. One that I felt mattered. I’d make sure to do so with or without the approval of the heroes. I couldn’t afford to wait. Callow was falling apart so fast that there wouldn’t be a Callow in another five years if nothing improved.

I wasn’t willing to allow myself to be set aside in the defence of my own home.