Gauntlet Fall (The Gauntlet Book 1) by Maddy Edwards

Author:Maddy Edwards [Edwards, Maddy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-12T05:00:00+00:00

Neither Craig nor I could easily forget that we were at the bottom of the heap at Harknell. If a few more Bronzes were eliminated, which they likely would be soon enough, it would either be me or my friend leaving. “I want to be bad, so that I can become a Rustler and not a Runner. But not that bad,” Craig was fond of saying.

Neither of us could bear thinking about it, but at least Craig had his dad and the rest of his family to think about, while I couldn’t imagine what I’d do in Swordell if I didn’t finish Gauntlet training.

“Everyone up.” With that loud demand, I was rudely awakened on Saturday morning.

There was yelling all up and down the Rafters. For a frantic minute I thought my secret had been discovered, but then the yelling moved off.

“You awake over there?” Toby called through the makeshift wall. “It’s shipment day, we have to go help with the deliveries.”

“All right,” I called back. I had forgotten about the shipments that came every Saturday morning, which meant that there was actually no day of the week when we could sleep in. The doves had started humming below us, and I heard whistling coming from outside the walls. The whole castle was gearing up.

The servants at Harknell were a hardened sort, especially Matron. They were deferential, but only to a point. They took the view that they had been there before us and would be there after we were gone, and what did we know about banking the fires anyway, especially since none of us had run the Gauntlet?

We had five minutes to reach the front beach, the same place where we’d come ashore on the night of the swim. I heard motorboats before I even left the castle, and when I arrived outside there was a flat barge moored offshore. Several more boats were on their way to the barge and a couple were already on their way back, filled to the brim with packages.

“To run the Gauntlet you must be self-sufficient,” said the Commander. “Until this point you’ve had help, but as you pass through each stage—and some of you haven’t passed through any yet—you get less and less of it. When you are finally doing your own laundry, it’s an honor.”

“He doesn’t actually think any of us are going to believe that, does he?” Craig asked with a frown. He hated laundry.

Students assisted the servants on a rotating basis. We were responsible for our own rooms, but they led teams that did the laundry, the cooking, and the cleaning of all the spaces in active use at the castle.

Students milled around on the beach rubbing bleary eyes and covering yawns, but not for long. The sand was hard underfoot and as usual the salty air came blustering over the beaches and washed the castle walls. Soon we were organized into an assembly line. I didn’t think much about it until Edwin Chester was put directly in front of me.

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