Called by the Dragon
3

Anzi remembered this place, every bend, every dip, every shadow. Or soshe wanted to think, but that was impossible. This was part of thedesert, which changed day by day. Nothing was ever the same,especially not after almost six years.

She had come here when she was twelve just like those recruits. Aftertwo years of rigorous training and advancement through the ranks, shehad been named one of the dozen most promising and put throughher First Run. She had completed it on the first try. Was the only onewho'd ever managed it. There it was, the memory of stumbling overand slapping her hands on the tower of circular stones that marked thefinish point, bleeding and heaving with two broken ribs, a shatterednose, and both eyes so swollen she'd barely been able to see. How shehad managed to fight off the senior soldiers chasing her and make it tothe end, none of the officers knew, until the four Second Runners hadcome trotting out of the gorge with bruises and open wounds. Hadthey fought between themselves over tagging Anzi, their commandingofficer had asked. And they had answered yes - but that Anzi had donethe worst damage. She had fought back, fierce and dangerous, evenbreaking one of the soldier's arms in her violent escape. He had liftedhis wounded limb with a sheepish smile to prove it. The girl had clumsymagic, he had said, laughably so, but a powerful body to compensate.Very powerful.

She had become the first and only Runner to make it to the end of theGauntlet on her first try. They still made her stay and continue to trainon the course for the rest of the year, but after that, things were neverthe same. She made up for her weakness in arcane combat with herprodigious fighting ability and advanced year by year, always at theapex.

It was still that way. She was days shy of eighteen but already here.Pierro and the others were a handful of years older than she was,having worked their way to this point in the usual time. But not her.And she didn’t want to wait to let them catch up, either. This was herlast year before she qualified for the greatest honor in Imperial Service.Becoming a dragon rider. Induction into the Premier Guard, the mostprestigious in all the land.

Her heart throbbed in her chest with such violence she had to suck in adeep breath as she ran on, searching for the three missing children. Thecolonel had explained that to complete this stage, everyone neededtwenty-five marked seals, captured targets. Across several tries, thelimited points would be distributed among the four Second Runnerswho caught them, with the task becoming harder and harder over theweeks as the children became more adept at avoiding capture. Twentyfive points, twenty five targets was all one needed to complete thisstage. The pursuing squad should work together, then split the pointsequally. Efficient. Easy. Fast. It would take time, but it was the best way.But she didn't want to split anything. Didn't want to work together.Didn't want anyone slowing her down. She would do this by herself,and she would finish this trial alone. She deserved it, camaraderie bedamned. She didn't care about the others and the humiliation theywould face. If they weren't good enough to stop her when she was allalone, then they didn't deserve to advance with her anyway. She wasalready earmarked for final selection - she was the favorite. She was themost promising. If she didn’t grind the others into dust and prove hereand now that it was a waste of time to dally any longer, it could bemonths before she got what she wanted. Hence the risky maneuver ofsprinting the fifteen kilometers all the way to the other end of thecanyon. Instead of fighting over all of the targets at once, she hadmeant to mark the majority of them here then chase after any thatslipped away.

Only she could do that, the fastest out of everyone by far. And she hadenough strength in her to fight, too. Dangerously.

She deserved this. She deserved to win.

That left one problem. The escaping targets would be running straightinto the arms of the other, and they were already on their way. If shedidn't get to them quickly enough, it would be a vicious brawl - not oneon one, not even one on two if Pierro regained consciousness in time.He was out of commission now, but he would recover soon. Too soon.She couldn't lose here. She was here to be a dragon rider, and no onewas going to stop her.

Anzi glanced down at her hands as she sprinted down the gorge andgrimaced at the silver liquid coating her hands and arms all the way upto the elbows. It had been necessary, all the warm serpent blooddripping down her fingers as she splattered it over every child with aquick swipe. The wyrm was alive, but she had needed its scent to markthe recruits and drive off other serpents. It had been the only way. Shewasn't a mage; she couldn't set up a barrier seal to protect theunconscious children. Or Pierro for that matter. He was an ass, but theywere comrades. Besides, no one should suffer being eaten alive.

A flash of movement. Finally! She launched herself out of her thoughtsas she veered down the left side of the fork that divided the gorge. Thatwas definitely one of the children, light beige desert garb. They wouldlearn soon: the first thing they should have done when they left thestarting point was to camouflage themselves by rolling around in thedust and coating their clothes with dust and sand to better blend inwith the terrain. But it was too late for this one. She leaped andbounded off a rocky ledge, one arm outstretched to grab the runningchild by the back of his loose thawb. That was the other disadvantagethe little recruits had, loose clothes -

She recoiled and twisted in mid-air, falling to the ground in a crouchwith her hand over her chest. Oh, gods, whatever had just struck herhad stung deep. She clutched at the bruise she could feel blossomingalready where the stone had nailed her right under her leather shoulderguard. Lethal aim. If it weren't for her uncommon resilience, that wouldhave been enough to make her entire right arm numb. As it was, thenerves buzzed up and down from her fingers to her shoulder,protesting with great complaint.

Damn it. The other two were already here, Aimee and Doufan. Shehadn't been expecting them to show up yet, but here she had run intothem before she was ready. Not to mention she still had to track downthe remaining targets. With her hand still covering her sore chest, shelifted her gaze to replace the two soldiers waiting for her fifteen metersahead. Doufan on the left, Aimee on the right. They were too far awayfor her to leap at them, but close enough for Aimee to lob projectiles ather with irritatingly good aim as she had demonstrated a moment ago.The tall, sharp-faced blonde was impressively magic-attuned with theuseful ability to throw small objects around. But that was the only thingabout her that Anzi envied. The threat from her paled in comparison tothe other soldier, who was already approaching with his halberdpointed squarely at her trunk.

That wasn't good. After Anzi, he was undoubtedly the most dangerousbetween the four. While he lacked Pierro’s brute strength, Doufan’sweapon mastery was second to none. He could wield his halberd andthe two short swords crossed over his back more skillfully than anyoneshe'd ever seen, and there was one other crucial difference betweenhim and Pierro: he never sparred with Anzi using his full strength, soshe had no idea what he was really capable of. She knew it, and heknew that she knew it. It was a smart move since they were competingagainst each other. In the end, they might both be called into the eliteguard together, but the superior candidate always had the edge whichmeant it was a good idea to conceal one’s hand from the other.Meanwhile, she rarely held back in spars which meant Doufan had seenfar more of what she could do than she had of him.

“Fair warning, Pierro won't be coming to help you two anytime soon,”she called out as he approached with light, careful steps. “It's just youtwo against me. No one else.”

“That's fine!” Aimee called back. “You just need to go down next!”Another rock came whizzing toward her through the air at deadlyspeed, and Anzi ducked just in time to avoid it while keeping her eyesfixed on the approaching man. Trouble. He had closed more than halfthe distance now. If Aimee gave him another opening like that, hewould come streaking in to impale her without hesitation.

Damn those two. Just as Anzi often paired up with Pierro, those twostuck to each other like tree sap. They were rarely apart and alwayschose each other first when everyone needed to partner up for trainingexpeditions. Now that she thought about it, they probably would havedouble-crossed Pierro after dispatching her, which was why he had leftthem behind in the first place. No wonder. At the time, she'd dismissedhis recklessness as a terribly executed attempt at a trap, but now sherealized he hadn't had much of a choice anyway.

Hindsight. She might have had a use for him after all, perhaps trickinghim into turning against the other two and then removing himafterward, but too bad. Now she had to deal with this alone. But therewas an upside to the situation: she could see a heap of beige clothed-bodies back there at Aimee’s feet even though Doufan was clearlytrying to obstruct her view of it by advancing up her line of sight, evenshifting to follow her when she tried to lean to the side for a better lookbehind him. That only solidified her suspicion that Aimee hadpossession of the last three targets, and she returned her attention tothe halberd-wielding young man who looked ready to skewer her.

His dark brown eyes were eagle-fierce and narrowed, head ducked andmouth set in a hard grimace. He was going to give this his all from thevery start. One one hand, that was an encouraging sign. It meant thathe thought he needed to, if he wanted to take her down. It meant hethought she had a chance. On the other hand, between him andAimee's troubling ability to harass her at a distance, she would haveliked to be underestimated at least a little.

All or nothing, now. She drew her spear from the loop woven into theback of her lightweight leather armor. She hadn't been able to bringPierro’s sword with her. Charmed as it was, it would become heavy andblundering once she carried it too far from him

So all she had was this spear, and it would have to do. And that wasfine.

She hefted the weapon and tightened her grip on it, preparing to clash.