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I frowned, thinking on just how that might go over. “You may not end up with what you’re expecting.”
“How so?”
“Well, Jez’s just as likely to have sex with you if she found you attractive and Flea—.”
“Just what kind of staff did you bring?” Alden asked.
“None. They’re my friends and we were stuck in Aravisia, so it was the only way I could bring them with me.”
“Oh,” Alden said with a blink.
“What’s this porter friend of yours look like?” Rylen said.
I ended the day with a class on logistics. The lecturer was a big woman, her hair clipped short to her skull and she wore some kind of uniform. “Remember, amateurs talk about tactics, professional soldiers learn about logistics,” she announced as she walked into the classroom. She surveyed the relatively small student body with a dismissive sniff. “Bailey,” she said, jerking her thumb towards her chest, “and you?” Her sharp brown eyes stared into mine.
“Ah, Tess,” I replied.
“Tess, tell me, are you going to be yet another one of these entitled idiots who assume someone else will make sure their soldiers have bedding, provisions and first aid supplies in a battlefield?”
“No?”
“Damn straight, you won’t. Now put those bloody books away, I’ve told you they are no use here. First rule of the battlefield; if you think things are going to follow some kind of mental model you laboured over developing here, I’ve got news for you. You must be organised, flexible and able to find a solution in any situation.” Bailey’s finger stabbed at the cover of the closest textbook, the student it belonged to flinching backwards. “Books can’t teach you that. There’s no substitution for real battle experience, which brings me to your assessment for this course.”
There had been an air of long-suffering tolerance in the classroom, but this quickly changed. Spines grew straighter, eyes trained on the tutor and her slow-spreading smile indicated she noticed it. “War games will be held on campus between two of the prime wings in three weeks. Your assessment will be to organise the logistics for the event. You will be split into two groups, each will be responsible for one wing.”
I looked at her blankly as we were assigned groups. I was pretty sure my team looked at me with as much enthusiasm as I did them. Group work on a final assessment I had to pass, with unknown team members, for a subject I’d never studied. I was beginning to feel like being shoved down the stairs was infinitely preferably. I raised my hand and Bailey nodded for me to speak. “Can I use my porters or my dragon?”
“Whatever resources you can find, you can use. Now, before you get it in your brains to use the staff as some kind of slave labour, who can tell me three possible reasons why using menials as part of a supply chain can be risky?”
I settled back into my seat as a sea of hands shot up, wondering how the hell I was going to pull this off.
After class, the feeling of helplessness intensified. I watched dully as the riders flipped through their well-thumbed textbooks, identifying the pages covered in my English translated one. If this was Dragonwarts, I needed a time-turner and a remember-all stat to try and compress what was effectively many years of learning into a scant three months, while also keeping pace with the new content. “So the workload is going to be steep, but you’ll get there,” Alden said. His teeth were bright and perfect as he smiled hopefully, but even the poster boy for Aravisia couldn’t maintain it in the face of my shell-shocked stare. “Think of your dragon,” he said, resting his hand on my shoulder and letting go of the false cheer.
“Thanks, really,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “This is more than I expected. Unfortunately, so is the reading. Anyway, I’ve got to get up to the Celestial Record and grab some basic texts to help me to read these ones.”
“The Introduction to Dragonology one is pretty basic,” Vella said.
“Nope, it’s not, not for someone who didn’t go through the education system here. All University texts assume a level of prior knowledge and I need to fill that gap before I can make sense of these.”
“Perhaps I could have my father have a word with Blake,” Alden said. “This is a distasteful business, dangling a dragon like bait before the masses.”
At least we agree on that, Miazydar said.
“Graves seemed pretty definite,” I said. “From his perspective, this is a gift. He can earn the undying loyalty of some merit family by bestowing a dragon he didn’t know he had, plus it sounded like they were going to take the Damorican government to the cleaners as well. Anyway, it’s a nice thought, but I’ve got to get a wriggle on. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Not coming to dinner?” Vella said.
“Nah, we’ve got some food at the house and I need to hit the books hard.”
16
An hour later, I left the Record with a massive pile of books. I teetered down the main stairs, thankful that the teaching building was largely empty as someone trying to take me out now would have no problem. I finally made it to the ground level common area, gratefully dropping the books onto the closest coffee table, shaking out my rubbery feeling arms. I had let my strength training go since coming back from Damorica and it felt like it, yet another thing I needed to get onto.
“Just the person I was looking for.” I turned to see Keel strolling towards me, a crooked smile on his face. I felt my breath catch involuntarily in my chest as he did so. It was Pavlovian, I had salivated over a man who looked just like him for so long it was an automatic response. “I’ll walk you to the dining hall.”
I forced myself to smile. “Not today, sorry. I’m heading home to get onto this,” I said pointing to the pile and moving to pick them up again.
“Let me,” he said, taking more than half off the top as it began to teeter. I went to protest, but he tucked the books under one arm and walked by my side. “So, Battle Techniques.”
