Process, Part 2 (CROSSProcess) by Hildred M. Billings

Author:Hildred M. Billings [Billings, Hildred M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barachou Press
Published: 2023-01-22T13:00:00+00:00

seven

During the last week of Sulim’s recruit training, Ayna came to inspect her every day.

She told Lord Rollo she was inspecting all of the recruits, but it was Sulim she watched with a sick fascination. Guns fired, and dummies succumbed to a training blade. Eyne and Waima were talented as well, but Ayna didn’t pay half the attention to them. It made Sulim wary, but she could not let that show as she demonstrated her growing prowess for the chief.

Sometimes Ayna came with an escort; oftentimes she did not. If she did come with somebody, it was always Kila or the dark-skinned girl, Giselle. Sulim had not seen Cairn since the day she heard the other girl stabbed a man from First Tribe at a tavern in town. Rumors were that she was sick, that she was shipped off in the middle of the night to a private mission, or that she was dead and discarded in secret. Sulim didn’t know which to believe, not that she had the time to believe anything that did not immediately concern her.

Cairn appeared the second to last day of Sulim’s recruit training.

The girl was haggard. She walked in such a way that suggested a wounded shoulder or organ. She never smiled—granted, she never smiled much before either, but Sulim noted that Cairn looked grimmer than usual. She attempted to stand next to Ayna with straight shoulders and her arms locked behind her back as was customary when escorting the chief, but her lips betrayed her pain when they parted in a well-controlled gasp.

Sulim was only able to see this minute detail because she was sitting out a round while the other female recruits hacked at each other with wooden sabers, Lord Rollo barking critiques as he sauntered around their scrimmaging circle. There was an odd number of recruits, requiring one to sit out and observe every round, and since Sulim had finished besting Waima with a wooden saber to the face and a deft kick to the stomach, Lord Rollo let her sit out and catch her breath in Cerilyn’s oppressive heat.

“Get off yer lazy arse and get these wannabes some water before their lungs explode!” Lord Rollo commanded, the sweat glistening on his bare brown head.

Sulim slumped off the crate on the sidelines and trudged up the hill to find the pump and tray of cups left from the last watering. Her muscles tightened as she ascended the first few feet of the hill. Will I make it to the top before collapsing?

She was aware of Ayna’s gaze like a rodent was aware of a cat perched and waiting. Sulim was too tired and too parched to care that Chief Ayna took an interest in her.

Don’t make eye contact. Maybe if Sulim pretended she wasn’t there, she would go away.

Sulim reached the pump and pulled the dirty pitcher toward herself. With Lord Rollo distracted by the scrimmages below, she drank the last of the stale water before shoving the pitcher beneath the pump nozzle.

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