"Just about," Tarrin said with a grin. "Keep you toy, Faalken. I'll stay with a real weapon."
"What happens if you don't have it with you?" Faalken asked.
"Faalken, my friend, that's what these are for," he replied, showing the Knight his claws. "And I can't leave these behind. They're with me everywhere I go."
Faalken laughed. "Point taken," he acceded. "But all in all, I'd still like to see you practice the sword. And the axe, and any other weapons you know. Best get used to using them as you are, in case you ever come to a situation where you need to use them."
"I can agree to that," he said after a moment. "Better to be ready for what will never be."
"Because only a fool says never," Faalken finished the saying.
Tarrin looked up at the sun. It was nearly noon. The students were filing off the field in neat rows, and that reminded him that it was about time for lunch. "I have to go, Faalken," he said. "I'll see you later."
"Have a good day, Tarrin. Come visit again soon."
"I hope to," he said.
In the Hall, as he was settling in for lunch, he managed to spot Walten a few tables over. Rushing over there, he saw that Tiella was sitting with him. They both saw him, and Tiella waved to him happily. "Tarrin!" Tiella said with a smile. "It's so good to see you!"
"They told us you made it," Walten told him with a grin.
"It wasn't easy," Tarrin said. He tapped the shoulder of the Novice that was sitting across the table from his friends. "Excuse me, would you like to trade seats?" he asked. "These are old friends of mine."
The young girl gaped at him a moment, then hastily vacated the area. The novices to each side of her scooted away from him as he stepped over the bench and sat down, shaking Walten's hand over the table and holding onto Tiella's a moment. "What happened after the boat sank?" Walten asked.
Tarrin gave them a very brief account of what had happened after he'd parted ways with them. He told them about Jesmind, but didn't go into the more personal things that had happened between them. "So after I got away from her, I made my way here," he finished. "It wasn't easy because of all the raiders running around. I was in pretty bad shape when I got here."
"Wow," Tiella said. "Nothing happened to us. We just got another boat and kept going."
"How's the Noviate?" Tarrin asked.
"Busy," Walten grunted. "I've never cleaned so much in my life. I think I may see if I can go back to being a carpenter."
"I'm starting to hate rags," Tiella added. "They make me clean the Keeper's office, and she goes into fits if she sees even a speck of dust."
"That's all you do?"
"Believe me, that's enough," she said with a screwed-up face.
Tarrin laughed. "Just stick with it," he said. "They can't make you clean forever. What are you learning?"
"Right now, history," Walten told him. "We don't get to start learning Sorcery until we learn some things about history and geography, and even things about adding numbers and a class on logic. After that, they put us in the Initiate, and we start learning magic."
"Sorcery," the Novice beside him said absently.
"Yeah," he said. "They make you scrub the privies if they hear you say that word."
"We call it the M word," Tiella told him.
"How long have you been doing this?" he asked.
"Almost two rides," Tiella told him. A ride was ten days, so it was nearly twenty days.
"They must have put you in fast."
"The day after we got here," Walten told him.
Tarrin chuckled. "They didn't waste any time, did they?"
"None," Tiella agreed.
Elsa stood, and the Hall stood with her for the blessing of the meal. Tarrin thought about what they'd said while she talked. They'd wanted to do the same with him, but he hadn't been in shape to do it. It must have been standard practice. He was very glad that they'd had no trouble after he'd been separated from them. Faalken and Dolanna were experienced travellers, but Walten and Tiella weren't really suited for fighting. They could, and did, though. Both of them had exhibited dogged courage and determination in the fights that had happened while he was with them. But they hadn't had the fighting background that he did. He was happy that it had been left to him, and not to them. It wasn't that he liked fighting, it was that he was better suited for it than them.
The blessing over, they all sat back down and started to eat. Tarrin listened as Tiella and Walten talked about the routine of classes in the morning, lunch, then maybe one more class, and then off to do all the cleaning, or whatever duty was imposed upon them that day. They talked about several instructors, and Tarrin was a bit surprised to find out that only a few of the Novitiate teachers were actually Sorcerers. But then again, the Novitiate dealt with pure knowledge, and a non-sorcerer was just as capable of teaching history or numbers as a Sorcerer.
Tarrin stared at a Sorcerer who had entered the Hall and started staring at him. It was an old man, with sunken eyes and cheeks and with a white-fringed ring of hair around that bald pate. He wore a simple brown robe that was slightly food-stained. The man moved with an erratic gait, as if one leg didn't always want to work the right way, and he made a zig-zagging, meandering course to Elsa and the Sorcerers seated at the table on the dais at the far end of the Hall.
"Who is that?" Tarrin asked.
"Brel, the Master of Initiates," Tiella informed him. "Nobody I talked to likes him. Mistress Elsa is firm, but fair. I hear that Brel enjoys punishing people."
"He's a little man that thinks it makes him bigger to put other people down," Walten grunted. "Standing on a man's shoulders may let you see higher, but you're still the same size once you get down."
"Well, that's a problem that will have to wait," Tarrin told them. "None of us are there yet. I'm not even here yet," he said with a smile.
"Tomorrow," Tiella told him. "We were all told about you, Tarrin," she said with a wink.
"Told? Told what?"
"That you'd be in the Noviate," she said. "A Sorcerer came into our class and told us about you. That you'd be in the Novitiate, and that since you're not human, you're not quite like everyone else. He said a few things about how to act around you, and said as long as we don't make you mad, that everything will be just fine."
"Nobody told me they were doing that," he said.
"I guess they want to make sure that nothing bad happens," Walten said. "Tykarthians and Draconians don't like people who aren't human, and the Dals really hate them, because of all the Goblins up in the mountains."
"I'm not a Goblinoid," Tarrin grunted.
"Yes, well, even I think that if someone called you a really bad name, you'd do something to them," Tiella said.
"I would," he affirmed bluntly. "But you know me, Tiella. I would have done it even before this happened to me."
"True," she acceded.
"There's going to be another one," Walten said.
"Another what?"
"We heard about it in our class today. A Selani is going to come and enter the Noviate."
A Selani. One of the Desert Folk, who lived out in the Desert of Swirling Sands to the east of Arkis. That desert, and the Selani that lived there, were the only things keeping the countless legions of the empire of Arak out of the West. The Selani were a hard people, like their desert, and they were regarded the world over as the most lethal adversaries in hand to hand combat in all the world. The Ungaardt were known for their fighting ability, but even the Ungaardt paled in comparison to the Selani. Five hundred years ago, the Emperor of Arak decided to try to invade Arkis. That was when Arkis was a fledgeling nation, made up of Arakites that had fled from the brutal oppression of the Emperor, Zanak XVI. An advance force of Arakite Legions had tried to cross the desert, and were obliterated by the Selani. Angered by the loss, the Emperor ordered his legions to sweep the desert and kill anything that moved. The Selani simply allowed the invaders to come in, let them wander around for about a month to let the heat and blowing sand take their toll, then they wiped out the invaders. The Selani had been angered by the attacks, and after a council of all the clans, they decided to attack Arak.