I woke myself tossing restlessly in my bed, and then lay there with that question wedged in my mind. It made no sense to me but some part of me urgently desired an answer. Why was the city better than the forest that had once stood there? That was what I wanted to know, and yet the question itself seemed to make no sense.

I sank back into sleep as if I were sinking into a tar hole. I dreamed I walked on the logged off hill above the river, and that a presence walked at my side. Every time I tried to turn and look at him, he was always just a few steps behind me, always at the corner of my vision. I glimpsed his shadow on the ground. His shoulders were wide and above his head, I saw the shadows of antlers. We walked up the burned and scarred hillside. Everywhere, men in rough work clothes plied their axes and saws, oblivious of our passing. They shouted genially to one another, and sweated as they hacked and chopped all through the chill day. When a horn sounded, they all hiked down the hill to a noon meal of soup and bread. Finally, I turned to my companion and answered his unspoken question.

“You will find no answer here. They don’t know why they do it. They are told to do this by others who give them money for their work. They have never lived here or hunted here. They only came here to do this task. And when it is done, they will leave and not look back. It never belonged to them, and so what they destroy is no loss to them.”

I saw the shadow of the antlered head nod slowly. He did not speak, but I heard a woman’s voice say heavily, “As they do here, so will they do in every place that they go. It is worse than I feared. You see that I am right. We must turn them back.”

And again I woke, sweating as if I had just broken a fever. Bleakness settled over me as I recalled the pale stumps like broken teeth, and the old scar on the top of my head pounded. I felt sick with someone else’s sorrow. It was a moment before I could find my own foreboding over the melee on the parade ground. My own concerns seemed foreign and petty. When I tried I tried to refocus my mind on them, I drifted into a restless sleep.

I stood before a tribunal, at attention, in my uniform. I was not allowed to speak. Light from a high window fell on me, right into my eyes, dazzling me. The rest of the room was in shadow. I felt cold stone under my feet. I could do nothing save stand in cold dread while voices from above discussed my fate. The voices echoed so much that I could not distinguish the words, but I knew they judged me. A cold fear filled me.

Suddenly a voice came clear. “Soldier’s boy.”

The voice had sounded feminine. I was confused. “Yes, ma’am.”

The voice was gravid with solemnity. “Soldier’s boy. It was given to you to turn them back. Did you?”

I lifted my eyes to my judges and tried to pierce the dimness. I could see nothing of them. “I got caught up in the moment, sir. When they called us, I ran out with the others and joined in the fight. I am sorry, sir. I failed to think for myself. I showed no leadership.” A deep shame flooded me.

As I stood there, desperately trying to defend my actions, I heard a drum beating in the distance. I turned my head to see where it was coming from and fell, to awaken on the cold floorboards of my room. The morning assembly drum was sounding. I got up off the floor, feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all. Every bruise on my body ached, a grim reminder of my foolishness the day before.

My head was still filled with foreboding from my dream. The others were rising from their beds as slowly as I was. Uncertainty filled me. Were we still confined to barracks? My stomach betrayed me with a loud rumble. Disgraced or not, my body wanted food. I dressed and shaved despite the swollen places on my face. Spink finally voiced our question aloud. “Do you think we just go down to breakfast like nothing happened, or wait up here until we’re called?”

We had not long to wait for an answer. A rumpled-looking Corporal Dent came pounding up the stairs to demand that we immediately assemble in the square. It was earlier than usual, but we managed to be fairly presentable, even Jared and Oron. Oron had to button his coat around his splint, and Jared still seemed half-dazed, but we worked together to get our entire patrol out onto parade ground.

It was a chill, dark morning. We stood in the pre-dawn blackness and waited. We heard the horn sound and still we stood in our ranks. I was cold, hungry and above all else, frightened. When Colonel Stiet finally appeared, I did not know whether to be relieved or even more frightened. For an hour or more, he lashed us with a lecture on the traditions of the cavalla, the honour of the Academy, and the responsibility of each soldier to uphold the honour of his regiment and how badly all of us had failed. He promised again that there would be serious repercussions of our riot yesterday, and that the ringleaders responsible for it would be leaving the Academy forever in shame. When he finally dismissed us, all hope and appetite were dead in me.

We marched soddenly to our breakfast, and filed into an uncharacteristically quiet mess. We served ourselves a breakfast that was typical of every breakfast we had eaten there. It seemed more tasteless than usual, and despite my night’s fast, I had quickly had enough. We spoke little at the table, but exchanged many sidelong glances. Which ones of us would be judged ringleaders and dismissed?

When we returned to our dormitory to gather our morning texts, we had the answer. Three trunks, already packed, waited in our study room. Mine was not among them, and the relief I felt shamed me. Jared stared at his dully; I think they had overdosed him with the sedative, and he could not quite comprehend the full depth of his misfortune. Trent went over and sat down on his and buried his face silently in his hands. Lofert, a gangly, dim lad who seldom spoke did now. “It’s not fair,” he said hopelessly. He looked round at all of us for confirmation. “It’s not fair!” he said more loudly. “What did I do that was any more than any of you did? Why me?”

We had no answer. Rory looked stricken, and I think we all secretly wondered why he had not been sent packing. Corporal Dent came up the stairs angrily to roust us out. He callously told Jared, Trent and Lofert that they’d be moved to a rooming house in the city. Messages had already been sent to their fathers detailing their disgrace. It felt horrible for the nine of us to form up where there had previously been twelve. He marched us double-time to our first class and left us at the door. Trist spoke quietly as we entered the classroom. “Well. That was our first culling, I suppose.”

“Yah,” Rory agreed stoically. “And all I can say is, damn glad it wasn’t me.”

I felt the same, and it shamed me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Letters from Home

Life at the Academy went on. Our routine closed up around us like a healing wound and after a time, the empty bunks in our quarters and our smaller formation when we marched did not seem so foreign. Outwardly, little changed, but inwardly, all my feelings about the Academy and even the cavalla had subtly altered. Nothing seemed certain; no future could be taken for granted, no honour or fellowship assumed. In the space of a day, I had seen three boys have all their dreams dashed. I now had to believe that it could just as easily befall me.

If that culling had been intended to build a fire in my belly, it succeeded. With single-minded concentration, I poured myself into my academics. I pushed homesickness aside. I even buried my outrage at how the old nobles’ sons were treated in comparison to us. We soon learned that none of the latter had been sent home in disgrace. On even flimsier excuses, four of the first-years from Skeltzin Hall had been culled. The first-years from Bringham House received demerits to march off, as did a number of the second-years. Our own Corporal Dent had dark circles under his eyes for a month, for he had to rise an hour early each day to discharge his punishment. But that was the worst that befell any of them. In time I came to believe, as Rory heavily observed one evening, “We were set up for that culling. We were chumps, friends. Chumps.”