D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

Smack. Smack. Hands came out of nowhere, hitting me quickly and then disappearing. I glanced up to the sky.

“The sun will not be up for a while,” Saangi said.

How did she know what I was thinking?

“You can hear us,” Loor said softly. “You can smell us. You can feel the heat of our bodies.”

Smack. Whack. Whap. No, I couldn’t. Anger gave way to frustration.

“This is stupid,” I shouted, and immediately got hit with a barrage of shots that spun me around. “Feel us,” Alder said.

I took a breath. I tried to sense where they might be. I couldn’t. Instead I got hit with so many shots that I was nearly rocked off my feet.

“Stop!” I shouted. “You want me back in the hospital?”

There was no answer. No instruction. No comment.

“Time-out, okay?” No answer.

“C’mon, this is dumb.”

Nobody responded.

“Loor? Get serious, all right?”

Still no answer. I still couldn’t see a thing. I took a few steps and walked into a wall. Ow! I backed off and fell on my butt.

“This sucks!” I shouted in frustration. I knew they weren’t going to hurt me, at least not seriously, but still. Their smacks stung! And not knowing when or where they would come from made it even worse. I couldn’t defend myself. I couldn’t fight back. I felt totally helpless. And tired. And sore. And angry. I had no idea what this had to do with training as a warrior, but one thing was pretty clear: I was at their mercy, and they weren’t going to stop just because I complained.

A quick glance at the horizon showed me that the dark sky was growing lighter. I willed the sun to hurry up so I could see what was going on. I figured that once I could see, at least I’d have a chance to defend myself. I didn’t risk standing up again because I was still disoriented. I got on my knees and crawled with my arm out to feel for the wall I had introduced my head to. I felt the rough stone, put my shoulder to it, and cautiously crawled away. I figured if they wanted to smack me around, they were going to have to find me. After crawling a few yards, I came to a doorway. I quickly rolled inside and sat with my back to the wall to catch my breath and wait for light.

I kept glancing out toward the dark compound. My heart raced because I didn’t know if another attack would come, or from where. It was torture! I had to force myself to control my breathing. And listen. If I couldn’t see them, I thought maybe I could hear them coming. But the only sound I heard was the distant wail of the desert wind. Eventually I started making out shapes in the Mooraj compound. Light was coming, and with it, relief. I no longer cared that daytime would bring burning heat. Heat was fine, so long as I could see.

A few minutes later it got light enough that I could see something odd in the middle of the compound. A structure had been erected that wasn’t there yesterday. There were three sticks, each about six feet long, forming a tepee. Hanging down in the middle of this frame was a small, black bag that I recognized as a canteen. A canteen! Water! I suddenly realized how thirsty I was. I wanted that water. Loor said the spikes brought reward. Were these the spikes? I didn’t care. I was too thirsty to care. Without thinking another second, I got to my feet and sprinted for the center of the compound. My eyes were locked on the canteen. My only thought was to get a drink. I was nearly there. I could taste the water. I never thought that this could be a trap. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. One second I was sprinting for the tepee, the next second I tripped and did a full-on face-plant into the sand. Ouch. I looked back to see that another long stick had been tossed in front of me. That’s why my feet got tangled and I ate sand.

Looking up, I saw Loor standing over me, holding still another one of those long sticks. “You have not earned that water,” she said coldly.

“This is stupid!” I shouted angrily. “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

Loor stood there, staring at me, holding her long stick like a weapon. I realized that these thin sticks were the exact same size as the wooden weapons the Ghee used, but they were thin and hollow, like bamboo. I also saw that strapped to her elbows and her knees were red, wooden sticks. Spikes.

They were around an inch thick and stuck out about six inches. I remembered seeing these before. When Spader and I came to Zadaa, we saw the Ghee warriors playing a game that was like capture the flag. All the warriors wore these wooden spikes. Instead of beating each other up, the idea was to knock off their opponents spikes, sort of like in flag football. If you lost all your spikes, you were “dead” and had to leave the game.

“Oh, I get it,” I said snottily. “I’m supposed to knock off those spikes to get water? Forget it. I don’t want to play this game. I asked you to train me to be a warrior, not put me through some kind of initiation.”

I moved to get up, but Loor poked me in the chest, knocking me back down.

“Stop it!” I shouted. “I’m done, all right!”

“I cannot give you physical strength, Pendragon,” Loor said coldly. “Nor can I give you the skills to fight in the short time we have. Our only hope is to train you to think as a warrior, and to act without thinking.”

“What?” I shot back. “That’s nothing!”

“No,” she said quickly. “It is everything. You have the courage. You have the wisdom. You are agile and quick to react. Those tools are far more useful than physical strength. But they must be developed.”

“All I wanted was to learn how to use a weapon,” I complained.

Loor tossed her stick aside and said, “Very well. Take one of my spikes and the water is yours.”

I slowly got to my feet. Loor was now weaponless, but I wasn’t dumb enough to think she couldn’t still kick my butt. This wasn’t going to be a fight-it was about my grabbing one of those red spikes. How tough could it be? I approached her cautiously. She turned so that she no longer faced me head-on, but was leading with her right shoulder and hip. The wooden spikes now pointed at me, teasingly close. All I had to do was reach out and grab one. I quickly grabbed for her shoulder, but it was a fake and I went for the spike on her knee.

She didn’t go for the fake and flicked my hand away as easily as if she were batting away a mosquito. I grabbed at her elbow, she shifted slightly and pushed me forward, nearly knocking me off my feet. I got mad. I dove to the ground, rolled and reached for the spike on her knee. She sidestepped. I didn’t come close. I jumped back up and went straight for her, grabbing furiously. She calmly batted me away again and again. And again. It was embarrassing. I felt like a little kid trying to get my hat back from the school bully. Finally, in frustration, I swept the thin bamboo weapon off the ground and swung it at her. I didn’t want to hit her, I just wanted her to knock it away so I could go in and grab one of the spikes. I swung, she stepped aside, grabbed the other end, and yanked it down so hard it pulled me off my feet. I let go, but not before being dragged to my knees, out of breath and exhausted.

Loor hadn’t even broken a sweat. She leaned down to me and said, “Never make the first move.”

“Okay, I get your point,” I said. “Now can I have some water?”

Loor walked over to the tepee of sticks and yanked down the black canteen. “When you earn it,” she said, and left me kneeling there, beaten.

The worst part was, my ordeal was only beginning.

Twoweeks. That’s how long I’m guessing we spent at the Mooraj camp. It felt like two decades. It was the most grueling experience of my life, worsethan the time I spent in that gar prison on Eelong. There was no rest. Ever. The cruel game was on 24/7-or whatever measure they use to figure time here on Zadaa.