The Perimeter by Boland Shalini

Author:Boland, Shalini [Boland, Shalini]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: Adrenalin Books
Published: 2013-11-21T07:00:00+00:00

Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, leg thrusts, weights. Gone were the lazy contemplative days of life as a crippled kitchen hand. No more weeding and peeling vegetables, or losing himself in idle thoughts. For now, Jamie spent all his days training. He was to become one of James Grey’s warriors.

His head had been shaved to a peachy fuzz and every millimetre of his body ached from the punishing exercises he undertook each day. Those beautiful synchronized fighting moves that Jamie had witnessed on his first day at the camp were not for the likes of him and the other new recruits. Perhaps they would eventually progress to that. But for now, he and the others rose at dawn, prayed, ate and then followed their trainers as they ran, sprinted, stretched, lifted weights, walked with heavy packs and swam back and forth across the river until they were fit to drown.

Occasionally they might have a rest day where they prayed and chanted, but these were few and far between. There was no quarter given, no slacking off, no sick days. You woke, you trained. In the beginning, some of them would throw up or pass out from the sheer physical effort – Jamie included. But there was no sympathy or relief. You pushed on through without complaint.

After several weeks of intense physical discomfort and sheer panic that he wasn’t cut out for this life, Jamie eventually adjusted to the new routine. His leg was now as good as new and his whole body had grown sleek. His previous life on the outside had kept him pretty tough, but now he’d acquired a seemingly unlimited energy that he’d never before possessed. Muscles defined his body and gave strength and grace to his movements. But there was no time to contemplate any of this. No time to worry or analyse what he was doing, or what he was becoming. His thoughts were all about keeping up with the others and making it through each new set of pain barriers. At night, he fell into a deep slumber the moment his head hit the pillow and in the morning he was up and dressed within minutes of his eyes snapping open.

He and his brothers, as he now thought of his fellow trainees, ate and slept on the floor inside the walls of the training camp and they trained outside in the water meadows, whatever the weather. Aside from their trainers, no one else spoke. No conversation lit up the hallways by day, no whispered discussion echoed around their chamber at night. The only words Jamie uttered were prayers or the warriors’ chant, which looped around his brain like a mantra. Jamie couldn’t imagine life without it. The words grounded him and focused his energy:

Scimus quoniam ex Deo sumus et mundus totus in maligno positus es. Verte impios et non erunt domus autem iustorum permanebi. Deus lux mea est. Dum vivimus servimus.

He fell asleep with the words swirling about his brain and he awoke the following morning with the chant fully-formed on his lips.

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