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the same way you don’t really notice your arms or legs. They’re just there.

  “Second, you will focus on drawing this energy out. This will be easy. With a staff in hand, the energy will want to flow outwards. The trick is to make sure the energy comes out in a form you can use.

  “Third, you will say the word of power Soa. This is an ancient Ithieric word meaning force. The word is only a guide. It helps you focus on one single aspect of the weaving, force in its simplest form. You must think only of Soa. Anything else will only weaken the spell. Those of strong mind and concentration do not need words of power to weave. They can visualise the energy within and shape every aspect of it without making a sound. Other people invent their own words of power. Some people sing. This takes years of practice and dedication, so you, Pond Scum, will learn the words of power as I tell you, and you will remember them.

  “Now, say it aloud. Soa.”

  “Soa,” the group intoned together.

  “I’ve heard better pronunciation from death worms, and they don’t have lips. Again: Soa.”

  The group repeated the word of power over and over until Holland was satisfied, until Serrel felt the word rolling around and around in his head, which he supposed was the point. Holland pointed to the first recruit in line, and ordered him to the post.

  The recruit’s name was Timony Glease, or Greasy Tim. He was a short, wiry boy, who looked far below the recruitment age of sixteen. He stood near the post, pointed his staff at the hanging flag and screwed up his face in concentration.

  “SOA!” he cried out in a dramatic voice. “Soa! So-AH! S-OA! SOOAAAH!”

  He tried for a full minute. Nothing happened. When he finally stopped shouting, his voice horse, he looked as if he had ran a full marathon. Sweat was pouring off his head. He looked sheepishly at Holland, who just rolled his eyes.

  “Fall in,” Holland said. “Next!”

  The next recruit was Jedron Bullock. He was the opposite of little Greasy Tim, standing nearly a head over the other recruits, with wide shoulders and the large muscular arms of someone who had spent most of his life working the fields. Naturally, his uninspired nickname upon arriving at Fort Amell was Bull.

  Bull stared blankly at the post, the staff in one hand looking tiny and ineffectual in his huge fist. He pointed the staff at the flag and grunted, “Soa.”

  Green sparks shot from the end of the staff with a sharp bang, accompanied by a smell in the air like that following lightning.

  “You weren’t concentrating,” snapped Holland. “Empty your mind of everything.”

  Bull’s brow furrowed. He tried again. “Soa.”

  There was another crack, but amazingly the flag twitched, ever so slightly.

  Holland sniffed. “Again.”

  Bull weaved the spell again and again. At most all he managed to do was make the flag flop from side to side. Eventually Holland dismissed him when his seemingly endless stamina began to wane.

  “Fall in. Next!”

  Up went Justin Tremmel. He practically sauntered up to the post, cleared his throat and said with perfect flair, “Soa.”

  A gust of wind unfurled the flag to its full length. It stood there it all its grubby glory for a brief second, then fell back into place. Justin shot Holland a smug grin, then wiped it off as the sergeant began slapping the end of rod into his palm. Holland’s glare followed Justin back into line.

  “Next.”

  Next up was Victor Blackwood. He was a tall, dark haired boy of about eighteen. He walked purposefully up to the pole and started weaving without ado. It took him three attempts to get the flag to move, another dozen before it stood up as Justin had managed. By then he was spent, and retreated wordlessly back in line.

  After him came a blonde girl who had introduced herself to Serrel earlier as Kaitlin Astral. He didn’t think that was her real name. Kaitlin practically bounced up to the pole and started weaving enthusiastically. It took her only three tries to get the flag up, and then with extreme concentration she held it there as long as she could.

  “No one likes a show off, Astral,” Holland told her.

  Kaitlin let the flag drop, and then rejoined the others. She wore an extremely broad and self satisfied smile.

  After her was the girl everyone called Mouse. Her name was actually Jilla Freman, but Mouse seemed more apt. She was a small girl in her teens, who somehow managed to almost contract into her clothing and appear even smaller. She regarded the pole with something approaching abject terror. She held up her staff and whispered, “Soa.”

  “Louder,” Holland snapped.

  Mouse seemed to contract further. She tried again, her voice barely audible. Eventually Holland lost patience and sent her back.

  Then it was Serrel’s turn. He swallowed as he stood before the post under Holland’s glare, wondering once more how it had come to this. He had expected a sword. An axe. Something pointed at any rate. He was a carpenter’s son. He knew his way around things with sharp edges. In his brief years he had never once even daydreamed of becoming a mage.

  His father had liked to tell him, “A wise man knows his limits, son.” Serrel thought he knew his limits, and had thought that they ended far, far short of weaving the ether and messing about with the fabric of reality. A man could get hurt doing that.

  “Sometime this century, Hawthorne,” Holland said wearily.

  Serrel raised his staff. What was the worst that could happen, really? He would try and fail, Sergeant Holland would make some belittling remark about how he was even dumber than pond scum and then he would be sent back to the regular infantry to hit things the normal way. He just had to get it over with.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He tried to empty his mind of failure and looking like an idiot. He tried to feel something inside him, some hidden power that had always been there waiting.

  The staff in his hands began to feel slightly warmer, and a strange sensation grew throughout his body. Another feeling took over him, his nervousness slipping away. Despite his efforts to clear his head, memories of his old life came rushing back. Days spent sanding wood in his father’s workshop. The day his father finally finished the lathe so they could carve table legs that were actually symmetrical. All those lumps of leftover wood he would take, seeing something within them that was more than just leftover rubbish from someone’s new chair. Hours spent under the old oak tree whittling those scraps of wood into new shapes and forms with such ease and artistry it was almost... magic.

  That feeling came back to him, the one he had when he was carving under the tree, dead to the world around him, the passage of time forgotten. The feeling that rose in his chest and tightened his heart as he cut and chiselled the block of wood in his hand again and again. He called it confidence, self assurance of this mysterious skill that came so naturally. But now he began to think of it more like awareness. Knowing with each stroke of his knife that the hidden figure in the block would appear piece by piece. He never had to think about the cuts, or even stop and plan his design. He would just whittle, and then there would be a perfect wooden figure in his hand, a horse in full gallop, a knight weary from battle leaning from his sword. Perfect to the last detail.

  As the feeling grew in Serrel, the staff began to grow even warmer. Its shaft began to tremble in his hands as the hairs on the back of his arms began to stand on end. He smelled lightning and spring rain, and the memory of sawdust. He thought: Soa. Force. Soa.

  He felt a shudder pulse through the staff. The flag fluttered slightly and fell back. Aloud, he whispered, “Soa.”

  He had been thinking of force, but with the memory of the oak tree, the scrap of wood in his left hand, the knife in his right, and hidden shapes buried within, he weaved the ether around him.

  The flag lifted in the outburst of energy, so there was that. But the force hit the wooden pylon, and ground off the top layer of wood, sanding it down and sending out a cloud of sawdust that choked and blinded everyone there.

  Holl
and waved his rod, and a gust of wind cleared the air. They all stared at the wood pylon, which now had a perfect carving of a galloping horse etched into its surface.

  Holland snorted out sawdust. “Yes. Very pretty. This is what happens when you don’t concentrate.”

  Serrel coughed once, and fell back in line. He felt exhausted. More than that, he felt emptied, like there was nothing inside him. Something that had always been there was now gone. Oddly, he had felt sensations like this before after long sessions in his father’s workshop, or while carving. It had never been this pronounced before. Now he felt truly depleted.

  It was finally Edgar Paum’s turn. The chubby boy looked absolutely terrified as he went before Holland. He lifted his staff, and started to utter, “So-”

  Before he could finish, a bright red flash of fire burst from the end of his staff and set the flag aflame. He shrieked and gaped in panic.

  Holland merely rolled his eyes, scooped one of the buckets from the ground and doused the flames with water. He regarded the black and ruined flag with disdain.

  “Again,” he said slowly, “this, Pond Scum, is why I said to concentrate. Look, you even singed poor Hawthorne’s pretty horse. And he wasted so much energy on it too.”

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” Edgar muttered.

  “Don’t be sorry, Pond Scum. Be better.”

  Edgar stared at his feet, close to tears. “I don’t belong here,” he said quietly.

  “Boy, you just started a