1 - Of Cheats and Choke Points

Twelve children in beige desert garb were lined up in two rows of six, standing in perfect formation before the mouth of a sandy desert gorge. Towering and narrow, the passage that snaked through it was far darker than it should have been in the rising light of the dawn, but not a single one of the children betrayed even the slightest shade of fear. Instead, they looked straight ahead with wide, alert eyes, a few of them even looking eager for what was to come.

"There are a dozen of you, but none of you will make it to the end. It has been done only once, and I expect will never happen again. Not when it's your first time, anyway." A bald man in hardened leather armor began pacing slowly before them, first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left again as he stared hard at each small head he passed. "But this will teach you endurance. To harden your mind as well as your body, that no matter how many bruises and falls you take, you will always rise up and try again. Do you understand me?"

Twelve voices chimed out in strong assent, childish but determined. "Yes, sir!"

"I tell you again. You will not make it to the end. Not this time. But this is your first step, and you will learn each time you fail. So run fast, and run hard. Go as far as you can and go farther tomorrow. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then..." The man moved off to the side with one final stride, letting his heavy boot fall onto the loose, sandy dirt with an audible thump. "Go!"

The children took off with a scramble toward the gorge's entrance, the rustle of their clothes accompanying their frantic footsteps as they entered the darkened passage. They left behind the commanding officer, who stared after them with a stern expression.

"Bit cruel, isn't it? I think a few would make it here and there if you didn't batter their confidence like that before they even start."

He didn't even turn around to look at his adjutant, a slender young man with blond hair, blue eyes, and dashingly good looks. "Be quiet."

"Alright, sir. You've got it, sir, no lip from me. Then...want to join the pool we've set up? I've put money on the girl with the long black hair. She's got a feral kind of look in her eye, and she seems more used to desert terrain than most of the recruits we get. We're thinking she'll make it a third of the way, the rest failing at maybe half that distance."

"Don't gamble on my soldiers, Louten. I thought I told you already."

"Ah...yes, sir. Of course, sir. Did I say we've bet money? Because it's not all money. We're dealing in rations and such, utterly harmless."

"Gambling is gambling. If I hear of it again..."

"Oh, and since I'm confessing all my sins, I'll admit that we're also gambling with cloth prints. Some young fellows in the barracks managed to get in a shipment of some good ones. You know...with, say, some curves? On an unrelated note, Captain, I'm partial to blondes myself..."

The bald man said nothing for a moment. Then: "Curves?"

"Oh, dangerous ones, sir. I'd imagine the artists must have absolutely broken their wrists painting them."

Another pause. Finally, the captain slowly slid his hand under one of his leather shoulder guards and pulled out a small pouch of clinking metal.

"Ah, I always wondered where you kept your valuables! Now I suppose I know how to rob you."

"If you want to lose your hands, maybe."

"Duly noted, sir. And who would you like to put your money on?"

"None of them. Put me down for no one making it past the first five kilometers." He still hadn't turned to look at his second in command, but he shoved the pouch to the side with an impatient gesture. "Well, hurry up."

The adjutant took the proffered gift with a frown. "That's a bit excessive, don't you think, sir? This year's batch doesn't look half bad. Not that a lowly desert garrison officer should know, that is...but really, I put down a month's worth of wages on the desert girl. You don't think she'll make it that far?"

"If you're so worried, you shouldn't have gambled to begin with."

"But, sir. Please, I just want to know if -"

"You've already put down your wager, so it's too late for you to change your mind anyway. Now go and put mine down. Hurry up."

"But Captain...Captain Sanson..."

"I will strip you down to your smallclothes if you don't stop badgering me, you dolled up palace reject."

Louten pouted. "I knew I shouldn't have taken this post. All of you are too coarse for me, and this place is nothing but dust and rude words."

"Maybe stop chasing the wrong skirts, then. Being banished out to the desert garrison in the sands here will teach you to slide in under the wrong duchess's covers, won't it? Now scat!"

The officer left in a hurry with grumbled complaints, leaving Captain Sanson to sigh and curse the military for burdening him with an unhardened pretty boy like him out here in the desert fringes. True, he was a good man, a funny one. But he wouldn't make it out here long with the way things were going. More rumors of rebel uprisings and other incitements every year, and the sharp, dry sands which encroached on the fertile territory more with each season like an unstoppable disease. Not to mention all the dangerous beasts starting to slither out of the desert on top of everything else, too. Louten could barely hold his clothes together without an attendant to help him pull back his perfectly groomed hair; what was he going to do if they were ever raided?

Ah, well. He would either sink or swim, or perhaps at least manage to float a bit. There was still time before things became urgent anyway, and today, he had other things to worry about.

Namely, the Gauntlet.

He peered down the gorge and waited for the first shouts to ring through the eerily dark canyon. It was the first time for this year's batch of premium Selects, the most promising that the Imperial City had to offer. But it wasn't just the children that were being tested, and soon, they were going to find out exactly how out of their league they were.

He sighed and shook his head, but with a knowing smile.

He was looking forward to getting those risque blonde prints.

* * * * *

Boots stomped along the sands as the children rushed along the bottom of the gorge. The craggy rock walls on either side seemed to tower higher and higher with each step, and the meager light that shone through the divide was hardly enough to illuminate the shadowed passage. Tall, stalagmite-shaped stacks of weathered rock stood guard at irregular intervals along the way, some skinny and barely an imposition while others were nearly three meters wide at the base, forcing the runners to clamber around the gigantic monoliths.

Soon, the natural corridor narrowed even more. Two meters wide, and then just one, until the children were sliding forward one by one  down the descending slope like droplets of water funneling downward. And the deeper they went, the darker it became, until finally the craggy tops of the gorge converged and blocked nearly all the light, leaving only the scant, scattered reflections of daylight to glimmer against the rocks and sands.

The children slowed down. They glanced between themselves and counted their numbers, only to find that they had all made it this far. This couldn't be it, their eyes seemed to say. Sure, the terrain had been hellish, but they had come almost a full kilometer and there was nothing here but dirt and dust. They had expected at least one dangerous beast or two, maybe, something that would truly put them in danger so that they could prove their mettle, but...

And then they felt it. The rumble of the loose earth under their feet, faint at first but growing stronger and stronger by the second. Two of them, a girl with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and pitch black eyes as well as a boy with much the same looks, wasted no time in scrambling to climb onto the closest ledges they could find, fingers digging into the crumbling walls and digging for handholds.

The other children were observant and bright. As soon as they saw the two desert natives leap for safety, they followed suit with all promptness - although two of them didn't quite make it:

Something burst out of the ground, spraying gritty sand in all directions, and the first screams rang out as the serpent-like creature bashed into the wall directly between the two slowest children who had only made it several meters up. They lost their holds on the wall and tumbled back down to the ground in a heap, one of them groaning and curling into the fetal position immediately. The other was slightly luckier and managed to land mostly on their rear, but he knew he was in no position to be reveling in any relief. With a fearful gasp, he scrambled onto his hands and knees and tried to run for the wall again, but the gigantic wyrm reared up, up, up -

- and let out a roar of frustration as it struggled to throw off something that was latched around its frilled head and neck from behind. Dark green scales glittered and clinked together as it writhed around, even throwing itself into the wall once more with ferocious strength despite the inevitability of hurting itself as well.

A spatter of silvery blood flew from the creature's gaping, fanged maw and landed on several other children who had yet to make it high enough to reach safety. The serpent was easily six meters long and as thick around as a heavy oak trunk, and when it reared up, the recruits clinging to the wall realized that there wouldn't be enough time to escape this way.

Until they realized what the shape attached to the wyrm's head was: a person. Someone in dark leather armor, and white attire underneath, someone wielding a spear that was lodged straight across the rear of the creature's maw behind its fangs. The beast wailed again and attempted to close its jaw as it thrashed wildly about, but the wooden shaft of the weapon held strong. Whoever it was that was wrangling the wyrm was strong enough to cling to the head and neck with just their clamped knees, but there was no way to tell who it was. The armor was generic foot soldier issue, and they had their head concealed in a white cloth wrap that barely revealed even the eyes.

The children had no idea what this person had been doing in the canyon ahead of them, but they wasted no time in taking advantage of their rescuer's timely appearance. They scrambled back down to the ground and fled for safety, running past the writhing creature -

CRASH!

They leaped back when the wyrm fell heavily across their path, barring the way forward. Could it be that it was still trying to trap and eat them despite its struggle to free itself?

"Grab rocks to throw with!" someone barked, and the recruits' heads all whipped around to look at the young girl who had just shouted. She was already picking up the sharpest piece of rubble she could find that had fallen down from the bashed wall, and she wound back her arm to hurl it toward the wyrm. Her pitch black eyes looked hard and fierce, and the stray strands of dark hair that had freed itself from her ponytail were pasted to her forehead with sweat. "Don't be idiots! That guy's not on our side. He's using the wyrm to get to us, too!"

They realized in an instant that it was true. With the spear still lodged horizontally across the open jaw, preventing it from closing, the wyrm was hardly a threat as long as they stayed away from its thrashing tail. But the person who had now all but subdued the wyrm, the one who was now effectively riding it, even - he was staring at them as he jerked back on both ends of his weapon shaft, making the creature rear back as well under his controlling grip.

Equally dark eyes stared out at them all through the slit in the white head cloth, and the girl shouted once more.

"He's a desertwalker, too! Don't let down your guard. He can't catch all of us!"

That was true, but what everyone else also knew was that not everyone would make it. Most might, if they were lucky enough not to be the bait. The others...

"Oh, look at that! I knew you were up to something when I couldn't find you down at the river choke point, you dirty cheater!"

Another voice rang out, a strong, masculine one that echoed all around them. The wrangled wyrm renewed its struggles again at the sudden appearance of an armored man strolling in from behind it, but the rider gave it another punishing jerk of its spear and forced it to settle down.

The newcomer was a young man with a strong, cut jaw and a cleft chin. Sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes glimmered even in the murky half-darkness of the gorge, and the mixed metal and leather armor he wore perfectly framed his tall, muscular frame. He approached with slow steps, moving expertly around the wyrm's twitching tail as he twirled a sword in one hand. He had the air of a trained, confident soldier, but the smile that curved his mouth was decidedly playful rather than dangerous in any way.

But looks could be deceiving.

He stared up at the creature's bleeding head and grinned, ignoring the gaggle of staring children entirely. "Well, the others shouldn't be far behind, so sadly, you won't be snatching your win all that easily...Say, you must have run the Gauntlet from the other end too, at some point, like these kids. How's it feel to be on the other side now, after all these years? Being the chaser instead of the chased?"

He received no answer.

"Oh, come on. No need to be so serious." He twirled his sword in his grip once more before positioning it in front of him with both hands on the haft. "Rookies don't get to clear the Gauntlet on the first try, whether you're here for the First Run like these kids, or for the Second, like us. Save yourself some time and just come down from there. If we're quick enough, I'll split half the kids with you, and we can take the win together this time before the others get here."

Still no answer. Some of the children surreptitiously began edging toward the wall, confused by whatever was happening but still desperate to get out of this place. If those two adults were going to stay this distracted, then perhaps this was their chance to -

"Ah, don't move, you little runts."

The man hadn't turned to look at them, but it was clear who he was speaking to. They all froze, eyes glued to the glinting tip of his sword, and were reminded very clearly that they had no weapons of their own.

"All of you stay exactly where you are. Uncle Pierro will take good care of all of you - as soon as he gets this lady here to agree. What do you say? Are we going to team up, or are we going to fight tooth and nail to -"

He leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the wyrm's diving head, which bashed through a natural rock pillar formation before slamming into the wall with a screech. Instead of withdrawing and trying again, however, the creature shuddered with an echoing wail before collapsing in a limp pile across the floor of the gorge.

All was silent as 'the lady' dismounted from the head, one slender leg gracefully swinging over the thick neck and joining the other to stand upon the loosely packed sand. She bent over to slide her spear out from behind the wyrm's fangs, belatedly freeing its maw. With an experimental heft, she steadied her grip on the weapon and stared back at the soldier, who grinned even wider.

"I should have known better than to negotiate with you. Come on, then. Let's get down to business...Anzi."